The Second Anointing - Mormonism’s TOP SECRET Ritual w/ Tom Phillips (MS Classic) | Ep. 1917

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is July 9th, 2024, and I am recording the intro to another, uh, what I believe to be very, very important Mormon Stories podcast episode. Today we will be rebroadcasting, for the first time on YouTube, my interview with Tom Phillips.

Specifically, Tom Phillips was a high-ranking member of the LDS Church—former stake president twice, I believe; former high-level leader in the United Kingdom in London—who recounts, among other things, his receiving of the Mormon Church's most sacred, most essential ordinance for salvation: the second anointing. So, um, I conducted this interview in June of 2012, and I didn't release it, I believe, until around 2015, right around the time of my excommunication. But this episode was originally released in audio form only, and this is the first time it's been released over YouTube. And it's released as part of a series. We have already released part one in the series, which was a history of the LDS Church's second anointing, taught to us by the amazing Brigid Buchanan. And then we had a second episode with someone we interviewed named Darren Klein, who talked about discovering his grandparents' invitation to receive the second anointing in his trash—in his grandparents' trash—and he talks about what that did to his faith, to his testimony, as well.

This episode, I would absolutely rank as one of the top three, if not the most important episode of all time on Mormon Stories. And that's significant because, you know, we've got over 1,900 episodes now. But in this episode, Tom Phillips recounts his receiving of the LDS second anointing on May 18th, 2002, in the Preston England Temple in Birmingham, England, by Elder M. Russell Ballard, who just recently passed away. And he gives all of the details, including Elder Ballard washing his feet and washing his wife's feet, I believe; also being ordained as a king and a priest, and his wife being ordained as a queen and a priestess. And then the next part of the second anointing, which is where the wife—Tom Phillips's wife—washed his feet and anointed him in a sacred, special room in the temple. He goes on to tragically talk about his relationship with Mormon Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, how that soured over time once he lost his faith. And then, most tragically of all, he talks about how he has become completely cut off and estranged from his Mormon family once he lost his faith in the church after dedicating a lifetime to both his family and the church. And ironically, in 2024, his son, Allan Phillips, former stake president in the UK, is now a General Authority. So, since our interview with Tom Phillips, the Mormon Church called his son, Tom, to be a General Authority.

So this is one of the most thorough, one of the most heart-wrenching, one of the most historic and important episodes in the history of the Mormon Stories podcast—definitely top three, if not number one. We're sharing it now again on YouTube, and we still plan on sharing again, rebroadcasting Hans and Brigita Matson's account of their second anointing. And then, hopefully, to close out the series, I have a special potential announcement. I have been in touch again with Tom Phillips over email, and while he has been dealing with some health issues, he has expressed a willingness to do a follow-up interview and tell us how things have been since he did this interview on Mormon Stories. We can't promise you that that's going to happen because it depends on his health, but we are super hopeful that that will come about. And he's definitely given us his blessing to rebroadcast this episode. So, um, this is—you know, strap in—this is a multi-hour interview. We apologize that it's only in audio form. I did ask Brooklyn to put some visuals in as she could, but the audio is all you need to derive a ton of value. Also, check out the show notes because the Mormon Think website has included several links to give you more details on the second anointing and on Tom Phillips's second anointing as well. You'll want to check those out as well. So anyway, huge love and gratitude to Tom Phillips for this episode. If you want to send Tom your gratitude for this episode, or for the way that he's influenced your life, and let him know how much this episode has meant to you, or me, or will mean to you, you can email me at MormonStories@gmail.com, and I promise to pass those emails on. But check this out, please share it with friends. Thanks to everyone who donates to Mormon Stories to make this possible. And again, if you value this type of content, you can always become a monthly donor at mormonstories.org. Click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor. But I now give to you, rebroadcasting on YouTube for the first time, my entire interview with former stake president and former recipient of the second anointing, Tom Phillips. Hope you enjoy.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. And, man, I have a very interesting story today. I have with me Tom Phillips. Tom Phillips is from the United Kingdom, is that right, Tom?

That's correct, John. Yes.

You are a retired management consultant. I used to work at Bain.

So I used to be a management consultant, too, actually.

Sure. Um, Tom was a convert to the church in 1969, which was the year I was born. And he's coming on Mormon Stories for a few reasons. He is a former bishop twice. He served in two wards for six and a half years as a bishop in England. He has been a stake president for five years over the Birmingham, England stake and the Cry England stake. His son is currently—is that right?—currently stake president.

That's correct, yes.

In which stake?

Uh, London High Park stake. London High Park.

He also served as area executive secretary over the Europe West area under two General Authorities, Ralph Kerr and Harold Hillam. But the most intriguing thing, and the main reason why we brought Tom Phillips on, is because he has actually personally taken part in an ordinance that may not be known to all Mormons, called the second anointing. But also, Tom has had some very direct exchanges with an apostle, Elder Holland; or he's written questions to Elder Holland, and Elder Holland has responded. And these are all very interesting things because there's a lot of people struggling with their faith right now, a lot of people with questions and challenges, and Tom has both served at really high levels of the church, and he's had direct conversations with an apostle about his issues, and all that's really interesting. So just tell us a bit about your LDS background.

Okay. Um, I mentioned 1969. I was converted to the church through missionaries, two missionaries from Utah. Initially, the appointment was set by my wife, who was more interested than I. I agreed just to see the missionaries one time and then just to tell them that we wouldn't be interested in taking any further. I knew very little about the church, about Mormonism. So my intention was to be polite to them, to see them, and then say we weren't interested. I was actually—I felt quite touched that evening when they came—for two particular things I recall. One, we had a one-year-old daughter, and I had resisted pressure from both of our extended families to have her christened because I had observed a christening service where a minister cast the Devil out of the child and absolved the child from sin, and I felt that my daughter had no sin whatsoever.

Right.

So that was never done.

So, of course, right at the first discussion, when I mentioned this to the missionaries, they immediately opened the Book of Mormon to and talked about infant baptism. So already there were some things here that I already, if you like, believed or had as my values that suddenly this was opening up something. Then the other thing I remember about that was just these two young men with tears in their eyes bearing testimony, and I just figured at that time, well, hang on, I'm going to see them again because I don't know why, but for some reason these two young men from America have given up time at university or whatever to come over here for two years to teach something that obviously they believe is true. So it's worth me finding out one way or the other. So I was willing to experiment upon the word. That's basically what happened. And again, you were married with one child, is that right?

That's right, one child, a one-year-old daughter, yes.

And so did you pray, and what led your conversion?

I did everything the missionaries asked us to do, including living the Word of Wisdom, praying every day. I took the Book of Mormon; I was commuting on the train each day, and I was reading that Book of Mormon both in the morning and in the evening. I would start with a silent—you know, obviously on a crowded train—I would pray, and then read the book, and then—and I did that for, you know, two or three weeks. And I felt that I received, you know, the promised—

You got—you got a spiritual manifestation?

I got—I got what I—yeah, I got a spiritual manifestation. I went home to my wife that night and said, "Look, I know it's true." Something happened to me on the train. I actually wanted to get up and tell everyone on the train, "It's true!" It was like my whole insides turned upside down, and I had an excitement go through my whole body that I knew this was true. So that's that's my conversion. I then obviously I chose to be baptized. I wanted to go ahead with it and make whatever commitments there were because, I guess before that, I'd kind of considered—whenever I considered religion, I felt that, you know, if I sat down, for instance, with the pope, he might persuade me of Catholicism; if I sat down with the Archbishop of Canterbury or someone, he might persuade me of his, with his ability to debate. But I guess at the time I just felt—because I was one that would pray—that the one person that wouldn't lie to me was God, and I felt that's what the missionaries did; they put me in touch with a way of going about these things and finding out from the actual Source whether it's true or not. And I certainly felt that way, and for the next 35-plus years, there's no question about the fact that God had answered my prayer and said that it was true.

Wow. That—I mean, that's a witness that many of us born in the church, Pioneer-descended Mormons never get to have. So that's a pretty special experience.

Yeah. Yeah. So what—what was your life like as a Mormon? Tell—just tell us about—I guess you had several children, and you and you became really active. Just talk a bit about what the church meant to you.

It—it was everything. It was basically—well, family and church were everything; career was almost an afterthought after that. It was whatever needs to be done to move forward. Well, church and family should almost be indistinguishable. Whatever I was doing in the church, I felt was for the family as well, and vice versa. So no, I just put myself—whatever I was asked to do or called to do, or whatever—that's what I would do. And I hope that we, as a family, especially as we grew, we all sort of learned those principles and learned their testimonies and everything else. So how many—100% committed—how many children did you have?

We had four children, which again was—sometimes in Utah that doesn't sound a lot, but in our case, with my wife's particular health situation, that was actually exemplary. She was advised by a doctor when we got married only to have one child. So I appreciated her for her faith and being willing to have four times the recommended number. So—and did you—did you enjoy raising your children in the church?

Was absolutely—absolutely. I mean, this—it seemed to add—I mean, you know, I can't deny—it seemed to add to a quality of life. I mean, it became apparent to me later on—I mean, I just give you one example when you—for that sort of question—I was sitting—I was at lunch with a director of a national recruitment organization that we were using in the UK, and as we were having lunch together, a business lunch, we started to talk a little bit about our families, mentioned about—we seem—we both had teenage daughters. And I talked about my younger one and the fact that I'd waited up for her to come home from a church dance, and then all she did was tell me for the next hour or two about everyone she met and what boys she danced with and all of that kind of thing. And he just looked at me, and he just said, "I wish my daughter would talk to me, say anything to me." And I guess that's what brought it home to me just how, in that sense, I felt blessed because of the church or whatever was being taught that we would have that sort of closeness that a daughter—you know, teenage daughter—can talk to her father.

Wow. So you felt like it helped you build a strong relationship with your children and helped you raise them to be healthy, strong—

I honestly felt—because I actually—PR—I mean, if I hadn't been in the church, I would have gone into politics. But the thing was, I—whenever I—of course, being in the church, I didn't really feel I personally was clever enough to manage, juggle all the time to do politics as well. But I felt that what the world needs is just the gospel, and that will solve all the problems in the world. That's how, you know, on board I was.

What are some of your—did all your kids serve—did your kids serve missions and get married in the temple?

All married in the temple. Um, two served missions. Two were married—well, that—two of the girls, one was married at 19, one at 20, so—

Wow, was getting married so—yes. Did they go—did they go to BYU?

No, no, no, no, no, no. English universities. And also, I've also had two grandsons. I've got one currently in the mission field, so one grandson's back and he's married from his mission, and another grandson is out at the moment in France.

What were some of your like—what are some of your fondest memories, or what were some of your favorite things about active, active church life? And you could just say like, "It was the potluck dinners," it was the, you know, the stake conferences, or, you know, what were the things that you look back on and just really love?

Really, it was just the people. Just—I just loved the people, and to see people's lives changed. I mean, I saw people come into the church, you know, converts that their lives just changed and improved. I saw others that were reactivated, and just others just grow, and—and it seemed, from my perspective, just everything was wonderful. Uh, you know, even comments when we would take non-members to a church social that they couldn't believe what fun we could have with no alcohol, for instance, and things like that. And there's just that genuine—so I think just what I felt was a genuine feeling that my brothers and sisters were literally my brothers and sisters. We had an intimacy that you don't get that easily, and then, you know, or at the time didn't think that you got that easily, you know, in other relationships and friendships. So I think the people and seeing the progress—I'm seeing people progress, seeing children growing up and going on missions, seeing them get married, seeing them have children of their own—all of that kind of thing. Challenging people, even from the point of view of disciplinary counsels, to see people repent in their lives and put things in order and and come back, and all of those things, I enjoyed studying the gospel. I enjoyed teaching. I often, when I had the chance, I teach Gospel Doctrine or whatever, and for a long time I was called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher. So I—no, there was everything I liked about—I didn't find—I mean, to me, people would moan about Sunday, you know, to me Sunday was a brilliant day, and I—I—I never resented anything, and I hoped as a family, as we grew up, certainly when it comes to the Sabbath day, because I know a lot of people had issues about, "Oh, do we do this? Do we do that?" We would just seem to be so busy, in a good sense, in the church and in what we did as a family that it didn't even enter our minds whether we should be doing any other of the things that may be not in keeping with the Sabbath. So it was just—it was wonderful. I loved it.

So you were—you were really living the Mormon dream.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Looking forward to it for eternity.

Wow. So what was it like being bishop? And what was like being bishop again?

Great experience. I mean, that terrifi—I mean, particularly with—with the—again, I took a special interest in the—well, not the whole thing. I mean, with a bishop, you're kind of managing the whole ward, and you've got all of the adult issues, and you've got the children, the youth. Again, it was a people thing, and again a stance I made at the beginning because I saw how bishops can easily get overrun by all sorts of administrative things, and I had an executive secretary who would keep my appointments, and I said to them, "Look, if any adult wants to see me, I mean, you make an appointment for in a week or two's time, right, or whatever. No, sorry, I didn't even say that. I stipulated he just made the appointments for however they felt that—that—that was not a problem. I—but however, if ever a youth, if ever a teenager wants to see me, you grab me there and then, wherever I am, right, right? Because you know that—that's not going to last, that person, if they—if they want to see the bishop and you give them a day or two, they're going to change their minds."

Right.

Right. So whereas I would usually look and look in people's eyes and preempt things like that, but I'm just saying that kind of thing I think I enjoy doing, especially with the youth, because I think that we had certain relationships because of that because I was willing to say, "You know what? You're as important, if not more important, than the adults," because the adults, to be honest, I kept trying to say, "You've got a high priest group leader or an elders quorum president or Relief Society president or whatever. Okay, there are certain issues you've got to see the bishop about, but most issues you could be seeing someone else instead of having a whole line of people outside the bishop's office every Sunday."

Right.

So that was a kind of emphasis I tried, and it seemed to work. It didn't mean that I wasn't interested in adults, obviously I was, but it's just easy to get snowed under and swamped by those problems, and you know what? Your youth just disappear.

Right.

So you made the youth a real priority.

Tried to—tried to. And what—what year were you first called as bishop? What century?

Just approximately 19—around about 74. 1974. And was that the—was that the five-year term, or was that the year—

No, that was the first one because—in the—I say that because by the end of '75, we actually moved out to Australia for a couple of years, 'cause I—again, I went there basically, and I talked over—over with my stake president and my temple president at the time because I was a serving bishop, and I—I, you know, I realized that—my—I would do five years there, but—

I said, look, I've got this strong feeling, uh, my parents live in AUST, Australia, and they are not members of the church. And I've got this strong feeling I need to go, not for a holiday; I need to go there and live. I need to, you know, go with my father and my son on a on a on a a camp and things like that. I need to, you know, spend time in getting them into the because I'd had them taught the gospel in, you know, before they left England. I'd had missionaries around; I'd sat in on their discussions, but my father had rejected it. So I was going on a mission with my family—I think we had three children at the time—to to Australia to get them. So with that understanding, the state pres, in fact, the temple president, fully endorsed me and the the State president. So that's why it was a short-lived um sort of term now, if you like, if if I want to, you know, then go. So what, why is it that that I'm getting prompted to do this? I was out in Australia three months later; my father dropped dead of a heart attack. He was a perfectly healthy man, so, you know, had I not acted and left it until another year or two when I went out on a holiday, um, I wouldn't have had that opportunity. So, uh, right, so I'm glad that I did. Um, okay, so you wow, you so you serve for a year and a half as Bishop. You went to Australia, sort of almost led by the spirit, and your and your father passed away while you were there. Yeah. Um, when was the next time you were called as Bishop? Approximately uh 1978. I came back in '77 to the UK. 78, year Elder Hate uh during a a state reorganization called me as Bishop. Yeah. So you met David B. Haight. David B. Haight. Yeah. Wow. Very impressed with him, actually, quite busy. I I just remember him being, he's jacked up just with his, as you call him, suspenders—we call them braces—and uh very businesslike, and but still, when I'm not saying that in any bad way, uh, it was just uh quite interesting to see the the different styles of the Brethren and uh no, he was great, no doubt about it. I really liked him. What, okay, so um let's let's get get to the State President part, and then we'll talk about your experiences with the Brethren um a little bit. So you you served for five years. Just just mentioned on that growing up thing with the children, I mean, I did all the thing about going to Hill Cumorah, the Sacred Grove. We had a family home evening in the Sacred Grove. We really felt that was the place that the First Vision occurred. I took my son onto the banks of the Susquehanna River just before he was 12, before he would be ordained to the priesthood, all that kind of thing. So I guess I'm just saying, yes, I was fully on board, no question about about it, and fully believing. Anyway, you say, get back, get—no, that's good. So so yeah, you're living the Mormon dream and loving it. Um, yeah, and you were—sounds like your family was really benefiting. Did work—like, were you successful at work? Did you—I mean, you said work wasn't your first priority, but did your career go okay? I mean, you're retired now, so it sounds like it went okay. Yeah. Okay. It's it's not what it would have been, but that's was the choice I made, and that's that's I've got no regrets on that. That's that's no problem. Okay, problem for me. So you served as five years as Bishop, uh, a second time, and then how long before you were made State president? What years would you have served? I'm just trying to think, 80, 88, 88. Okay. So State president. Yeah. So I called a bishop at 78, so 10 years later. So I served five years. Yeah. Then about five years. I mean, obviously, I'd had time on high councils. Oh, I also had time um as a council in the State presidency as as well. And what was it like being State president? Uh, brilliant. Well, I say brilliant, I mean, it look, as I used to say, because some people used to look at these things as a hierarchy, I have never ever in my life sought for office in the church. In fact, if anything, I would hide away. I I know that um, in fact, I've missed certain—in fact, I probably would have been stake president in another place earlier on in my life, but I I was actually in in Florida when they were doing the the state reorganization, 'cause I know the the guy that was called said to me when I got back, he said, if you'd been here, you would have been the State president, not me. So now I'm not saying that that would have been the case, but I'm I'm saying I'm the the kind of person that doesn't seek for office, and I I was quite happy to sit in the background or or whatever, right? But having been called, I'll put my all into it. And again, with State president, um, uh, no, just wonderful, you know, I could cry over the personal experiences I had with people. People, again, to me, it was a people type thing, um, especially when the century state was organized. The people there that had been come from different states couldn't quite get over the fact that when we had a stake priesthood executive or stake meetings, they they all wanted to deal with calendar issues and all sorts of program issues, and uh they couldn't believe it when all I was talking about were people and and names of certain people, right? And they then they knew any High Council that was assigned to a unit, um, they knew they were on dodgy ground if they didn't know more than me about the people in that ward, 'cause initially it seemed, because I used to visit around, that I may know more than them about it. So it kind of—so again, the emphasis was people. And when I say that, that's not out of me; that's what the lessons I felt I was getting from the Brethren; it was all about people rather than programs. The programs were there to help the people, not the other way around. I saw so many other PEs, you know, other leaders fall into the trap of, we've got to have this program, we've got to do this, we've got to do that. No, what we've got to do is is is bless the lives of our people. People. Now, what programs will we use, and how will we use them to to bring that about? That that was the emphasis, right? Okay. Which which General Authorities did you meet um as either bishop or State president? Um, um, throughout, I I've I've met an awful lot of them in in my time, um, we just some ones that we would know. Okay. Let let's just go back a bit time. Ezra Benson as president of the church, I was actually in his office with my family back in about 1987. So that was just before becoming State president. Now, I I know you wanted, you saying about sharing some stories there. I mean, uh, President Benson at the time, I mean, I we were just in awe when we were just told to come to his office at 6:30 in the morning. I mean, we didn't mind getting up at 5:30 and putting on Sunday best and everything, right? But it it was such a privilege for us as a family to be in his office. It was just before it was 6:30 because I think at 7:00 a.m. he had a First Presidency meeting. Now, I just mentioned him because what imp—at the time and this—okay, later on, I may think differently about it, but at the time I was impressed by what I thought was his humility. Uh-huh. He was very gracious to us, no question about that, as almost all General Authorities are. I can't speak highly enough of them in terms of them making you feel good. You know, I'm not going to be one of these that will throw mud or sticks at General Authorities and saying they this, that, or the other. I have known none but gracious and kind people. That's been my experience as well. Okay. Now, again, I felt this way with President Benson, but then there's also an anxiousness in him. Now, I put it down at the time, I thought, you know, this is wonderful; this is someone that was Secretary of Agriculture, and he seems—he seems nervous going into a First Presidency meeting. So I translated that in my mind that this is the man that really, you know, this is God's spokesperson on Earth, and he's going into an important meeting of that, you know, and he takes it very seriously. Um, so that's the way I felt, and that was a very uplifting experience for us as a family. Now, later on, and certainly hearing uh some more stories from Steve Benson and others, maybe my interpretation was not correct. I don't know, but um, you know, maybe there's something else going on in his mind at that time um that I was not—I certainly was not aware of—but but he—but you felt he treated you with with dignity, respect? Absolutely. Absolutely. He and also his counselor um at the time, I think it was Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson. Uh, President Hinckley as well. Thomas S. President Monson was somewhat dismissive. I must say that that was the second time I'd met him, and uh I I just felt he was different. He was quite dismissive and just more interested in getting on with the business in hand than uh than necessary, not as personal, not as personal. For President Hinckley was a very personable person. I mean, I met him on, you know, numerous occasions. He was uh—I always thought he genuinely loved the people. There's no question about that, you know, in his heart he he loved to be with the people, and that's why he traveled so much, I think. Uh, no question about it. I didn't get that feeling with President Monson, unfortunately, but anyway, each one's different; that's all I'm saying. Each one's got a different personality and a different thing to—right. Right. Okay. So uh that sort of thing. Um, again, another very kindly General—just to put another thing to rest—I I I spent—I did some traveling with a Robert S. D. Gay at one time. Mhm. Uh, he's an Australian that was called as a General Authority. Now, I just want to say that because he was a very—again, a kindly person—but he was a little bit out of the ordinary from a normal General. He didn't seem maybe as polished and everything as as as as the normal one. He was more of a—I'd hate to say this with uh Dr. Simon Southern, who is a very polished Australian—but but Elder Gay was a little bit rougher as a diamond, uh, but such a genuine and and lovely person to meet. And I just want to say this one thing about—I could say a lot of things about him—but one particular thing because uh a lot of people make an issue about General Authorities and the money they're raking in and everything else. Elder Gay told me, and I believe him, that he received a living allowance from the church, not that he wanted it, but he received it, and he had no option, but he took that, but he then immediately donated it back to the church. I believe he did that because he said, look, I've been blessed in my life; I've had a good career; I've got a good pension; I don't need any more money to live on. Um, so I just want—maybe people ought to be aware of that—that not everyone—okay, I've met others that I think would take a different attitude and others that have certainly benefited financially from the church, but I'm just saying there are others that are just genuinely there because they believe the church is true or believed true. That's all. Yeah. So him, Elder Hales, and Elder Holland, uh, as there's a whole list of—I could talk about all sorts of people—Elder Eyring, all sorts, but I think mainly Elder Hales and Elder Holland, if if you want, I can take a few minutes with on those or not. Yeah. Talk, talk about—why don't you talk about Elder Holland and just what what type of person you found him to be, and what in what capacity did you work with him, and and maybe a story or two that you think would help us get an understanding for for what he's like, or stories that you think would be interesting for people to hear. Okay. Elder Holland, um, I mean, I worked with him as, obviously, he was a he was the area president. I was a at the time when I was a State president, um, you know, in his area. So uh obviously, I would have some contact in that regard, but also we're members of the same ward. Um, he'd even suggest at one time we played tennis together. Um, now, I never took him up on that. He was probably a far better tennis player than I would ever be. I, you know, believe it or not, I've actually played tennis with him when I was at BYU, when I was at BYU. Um, I I got to play tennis with him once, and um he had just ruptured his Achilles heel and healed from it, but uh he was a good tennis player. He was a good tennis player. Yeah. This I this I would expect because, I mean, okay, us Brits don't take things maybe seriously. I you—anyone that said he plays tennis, he's probably been coached by Agassi or someone or other, and uh um so I didn't—but for two—I I mean, probably good anyway. But also, I knew how busy he was, and also any time that he had, I would—I think it's better that he he was spending with Pat or, you know, his family. So um I know some—how many years, how many years was he in your ward? I don't know, three or four years, I think. And so did you know his son Matt and Mary, his daughter, and Duff, his youngest son? Uh, really Duff. They were only there with Duff and Duff. Um, as I mentioned, he was very—he was quite a close friend of my my son's Al. Oh, and in fact, I mentioned that to Elder Holland because one of the things I've treasured is a letter that Elder Holland um wrote to myself and my wife about praising our son and and the great influence—CU—they were worried when when obviously when Duff went to to the UK and leaving all his friends behind in Utah and everything, just what kind of an experience it would be for him, and uh he really praised my son. He was a, you know, a giant as far as he was concerned. He he couldn't wish for a better, you know, role model for his son. So um so I did know Duff. Um, Matt, I met briefly as he because he had already left home at that stage, I believe. I'm not quite sure, you know, what. So this was this was after Elder Holland had served as president of BYU. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is when he was—he was called as a General Authority. He uh he replaced, I believe it was Elder Oaks. Yeah. Elder Oaks was the area president. He replaced him. So again, but he wasn't an apostle yet, is that right? He was not an apostle. No, he was he was in the Seventy then. He was not Apostle at that stage. So uh yeah, that came a bit later, and obviously, we—when we knew that we were excited when he was called as an apostle, but um at that time he was a he was a Seventy. So how many stakes would he have been over as an area leader, area president? Uh, the time uh the trouble was the area kept changing, um, right, but 10, 100, like just a rough—it would have been 70 or 80. And certainly when I was in the Europe West area, we were talking uh I think about 110, 120. Okay. So you would have been one of over a 100 State presidents that he would have interacted with. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not—yeah, I'm not saying it was—yeah, yeah. But you were in his ward. What—what any stories or descriptions of—because I I found him to be very thoughtful, very intelligent, um very warm, very fun. Extremely intelligent, extremely warm. He came as—on assignment—to a State conference with me, and at that time I'd actually just been diagnosed with a a tumor which they were about to operate on, 'cause the the surgeon thought it was cancer, and uh I was feeling pretty weak at the time anyway, and he came for my State conference, and he was just so kind to me in relieving me of certain meetings and uh and doing things and and even offered me a blessing, uh which actually I I declined from him because I didn't want him, you know, I would love to have had a blessing from him, but I thought, no, the correct way of doing this is to go through my uh let my home teacher do it. So I sort of followed the correct channels rather than uh taking a privileged position and having him do it. So he was um extremely extremely kind to me. Um, and also another time, you know, that was on a personal basis; then another time was we had an issue in in our state where one particular ward, we tried for 20 years to get land for a a building which uh it just never happened, and then suddenly things had happened, and I had located something, and we negotiated things, and anyway, that started to go pear-shaped. It went south because um suddenly the whole deal was off. It was put off by the uh the Committees in Salt Lake. They weren't going ahead with it. I went round on a Sunday evening to meet with the um people that we were buying the land off, and they were devastated 'cause they were actually very very anti the church at that time, time because they felt that the church had actually lied to them because this this deal had been going on for two years now, and they—on the basis of that—had bought other property. Anyway, I found out all the facts. I went and saw Elder Holland on the—I think it was the Monday morning. It was either Monday or the Tuesday morning—had a meeting with him, laid out all the facts about it, and it did—it did seem that uh he'd been given false information from people uh you know, from other people. Uh, he left that meeting to travel about two or three hours south, um and then he phoned me early evening to just say, Tom, you got your land. And I couldn't believe it because these things normally go through committees, but he he made a call at that time directly to President Hinckley and used one of his silver bullets um because he recognized things had been done that weren't quite right. So I've got to commend him for that as well. What—however he did that, I don't—I have no idea, 'cause I—these things you'll probably be aware—they go through all sorts of committee stages and everything, and it takes weeks if not months to to get approval on things, but he got it that day. Wow. That's that's really cool. So I was—I've always been tremendously impressed with him. He's he's been a hero of mine all all the time, as—and not alone in that; he's, you know, with others as well, him and his his his lovely wife, Pat as well. I I, you know, speak highly of them. Yeah, which, you know, later on, that's why I was devastated with the kind of response I got from him recently. So uh anyway, we we'll get—that's another side of it—we'll get we'll get to that for sure. Um, so um any other any other stories or experiences in the church that were important to you that you would want to tell prior to um your experience getting the second anointing? Not really. I no, I've uh I I've had all different experiences. I I had dealings when I was State president about actually excommunicating apostates that went on the sort of Adam-God theory and and polygamy. How was that? How did you handle that? Well, this this was uh quite a contrast with me. It came—actually, had one of my Bishops, um, and there was a subtlety to it all, 'cause uh obviously a hook was being laid out there anyway, by various questioning. I found out that he and his wife and and an older quorum president and his wife were were into this. Um, I actually spent six months with them trying to look at all their, you know, first of all, I wanted to understand what it was, what their issues were, and tried to give them all the answers that I could. So I I spent about that, but when we were getting—once I then found out that he was actually preparing um single sisters in his ward to be his wives. Whoa. Now, this is a…

Former Bishop, you say? Yeah, wow. And he'd been, he'd been doing this while he was serving as a bishop. Oh no, he'd actually been preparing certain sisters that were returned missionaries and keeping it all secret. Um, we also found out, uh, later on that, um, because in his, in his ward—he there were certain—he lived in an inner-city ward that had, um, a fair amount of his congregation were Black, right? And, and, and the, the boys, the deacons and the teachers were Black. Uh, we found out later that, um, this stake president and his wife and, and friends were going to their home and administering their own sacrament because they wouldn't take it from a Black person. Oh, there were issues like that. So I uncovered all that, and we ended up—I mean, tried my best—but we ended up obviously excommunicating them. And I remember going into my office after that and banging my head against the wall and crying. My counselors—well, cuz I said, do you know what I said to them? I said, "Give me a good, clean adultery any day," because you know, if someone commits adultery, I got a good chance they're coming back, but this—what I'd been through with these people—these are never going to come back. This, this had a feel about it that I just didn't like at all.

How many, how many people were excommunicated? Funny enough, uh, there were a total then of six—uh, four, the two couples—and then there were the two sisters that were involved, but they both came back. We actually got them back. They were—when I say excommunicated or disfellowshipped—the four that were excommunicated, uh, that's it, as far as I know, they've never come back. They, they embraced fully the, uh, I don't know whether it was Owen Rood or whoever it was, the Orid type group. Um, yeah, they became fundamentalists. They became, they were fundamentalists, and they—and some of—they even went to, they even had this way that apparently they had a loophole, they could go to France and, and, and marry there, and there were all sorts of things that they had. Anyway, they were excommunicated, but they were still coming out, and then I had to go a stage further and actually take legal opinion. I actually had them banned from attending anywhere in—because what they were doing—they would come into the wards and sit next to people in Sunday school. Their group actually had, in advance, what the Sunday school lessons were, and they would know when, what sort of comment to make at a particular time, because, of course, being fundamentalist, they can't very well go door knocking to get converts; they've got to get them off the mainstream church, and that's what they were doing. So once I found that out, we just had them banned, and that's—again, I had to alert President Holland to that because, although I could do it in my own stake, I had no jurisdiction over others, so it was up to him as to what he did, uh, as far as the country was concerned, because I found—once I banned them from mine, they were going to other—they would go to Oxford University people, you know, student places like that and try and get people.

So, and you were, and you were sad excommunicating them? Oh, well, I—they were—I mean, one of these was a bishop, and you know what? He was one of the best bishops you could imagine. Um, I remember someone once saying, calling his name and said, "You know, find out what he's on and we all ought to take it," cuz he was so energetic, he was so dynamic. Uh, he was, he was great. A True Believer. He was a True Believer as well. And, of course, he was a True Believer in the sense that he believes, um, you know, back to Brigham Young and, and that Woodruff went astray, you know? He's a firm believer in John Taylor and before. So, uh, that's the way that happened.

What was it, what was it like for you to investigate these issues? Did, were they issues you had already known? Were they, were they troubling to you? And how did you deal with—did you have any cognitive dissonance about learning these things and trying to make them, make sense of them? Because a lot of people ask like whether the General Authorities know the difficult issues, yeah? And it seems like you would have been confronted with them, and how did you maintain your belief and commitment to the church being exposed to these issues? Yeah, I've often asked myself that because prior to that—I mean, even when I was in early in the church—I, I gave a—I was asked to do a lecture at a philosophy class, and, and I—they—I didn't realize they came out with a Spalding manuscript. I'd never heard of that at first. I'd heard of it. So there's issues like that which then I just went back to the church, said, "What's this about?" And then I get an answer which, to me, sounds credible. It was the same with the Kinderhook plates. Anything now on this polygamy thing. So the church would give you, give you responses. Yeah. Where, how, how did you—how would a stake president ask a question to the church? Uh, if I was stake president, I, I can ask—well, I can ask any of one—someone like President Holland if necessary, um, or there was the PR department of the church. They, they usually had things already, um, prepared to answer these questions. Certainly on the Kinderhook plates, they just gave me a printout of what they, they dish out as their, their standard answer at that time. I don't know what happens now. Uh, it was the same with the—see, the Spalding manuscript was very easy. Oh no, we, we everyone's looked at the Spalding manuscript and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Book of Mormon, right? And I accepted that, and, and, and, and in a sense it's true, but it's not the Spalding manuscript, you know? There's two Spalding manuscripts, maybe. I mean, maybe, maybe. So that's another—so all I'm saying is there were these issues that I—yes. So I can understand, you know, you're a firm believer, you know it's true, so anything that comes at you, providing you given some kind of an answer that's, you know, reasonably credible, you accept it and move on. Now the same with all these issues about polygamy. Now I'd actually done a, you know, I'd done an Institute class on polygamy, which, which really went down well, but again I took all of the church historical information and showed how it was all divinely inspired and everything, and, and, and all that sort of thing. Um, now when these people started to talk about the Adam-God theory and, and these things, I looked at it, I, I studied Brigham Young. I could see the quote in the Journal of Discourses, by the way. Even early in my days, I'd read all the Journal of Discourses, so I know all of that stuff as well, but it didn't—it didn't—actually, it didn't strengthen my testimony, you know? It strengthened it—people say, "Oh, don't look at that," because it did the opposite for me. I, I, I was fascinated by all—so okay, I came to—and the final answer I gave them in my office before we held the court—I called them into my office and I said, "Look"—actually asked one of them to, to offer the prayer, and they, they offered a prayer—and then I just said to them afterwards, "Now, when you addressed 'Dear Heavenly Father,' who, to whom were you referring? Were you referring to Adam?" And they said, "No, no, Heavenly Father, Elohim." So I said, "Then okay, let me ask that question another way. The person you just addressed as Heavenly Father, was he, in your opinion, on this Earth as Adam?" They said, "Yes." Okay, so that's how I—you see the clever way they, they avoided things—that's how they could just be normal members without you knowing. So when I got to that and I said, "Look," cuz they're saying, well—I said, "Look, the only answer I can give you—if you're saying that Brigham Young taught the Adam-God theory, President Spencer W. Kimball says that is false doctrine. I'm going with President Kimball on this one," right? So first of all, I, I'll give you one of two answers: either Brigham Young did not teach that, or he didn't mean it, or he's been misinterpreted, or whatever you want to say, because you know, I could quote other things from Brigham Young where he says the opposite, right? Um, so either—and that's what I would like to believe—that he didn't teach it. However, I said, "If he did teach that, then I'm sorry, we've got an issue here of a prophet of God that, that taught a false doctrine," right? Handle that, you know? That's it, that's, that's what's happened. He's taught a false doctrine if that is true, and that's the way that—that was the final answer I gave them, and then that wasn't satisfactory to them, and then we went before a court, and because they couldn't sustain President Kimball and, and the current teachings of the church and, and were actually actively going about preparing plural wives and things like that, they were excommunicated.

So let me just ask you, from, from the church's perspective, why would they care whether someone believed that they were praying to a Heavenly Father that once was Adam or not? Why did that—or, or was that, was that not really the issue? The issue was the polygamy. Well, it's, it's in—it's all part of the one and the same. They almost go hand-in-hand, and with that comes what they call the second endowment. These three things are bound together in that fundamentalism. Um, now, okay, now someone—someone thought that these people were excommunicated because of their beliefs—that that was not true. You know, people can believe what, you know, that John—people can believe what they like in the church. Well, I don't know that actually. Okay, you don't. Okay, well, that was told to me by a General Authority. Elder Lunn said, "Tom, you can believe what you like; we'll only excommunicate you if you publish that or speak about it." Oh, so it's being public about what you believe. Yeah, you can, you can believe what you like, but it—once you go public on it and start to influence others. Now, in this case, they were influencing other people in my—do you know what? My C had a dream one night—if you can—he came back, he said, and the interpretation of his dream was, "We're going to lose half the stake over, over this one issue." So when we ended up losing four people, I was extremely relieved. So, um, you didn't, you only lost four? Yeah, it was, it was, it was a—so you were saying it's a full package. It wasn't just their beliefs, but the fact that they were practicing polygamy and holding their own sacrament meetings and just trying to use our temples for their benefit, not for anything else, um, because they didn't actually believe—okay, their belief was that the, the—and in fact, even the clever Temple Recommend interview—when you—do you sustain, for instance, at that time, or if you said, "Do you sustain President Monson as the president of the church?" They could answer yes to that because he is a president, he's the Pres of the church, he's not the Pres of the priesthood though, right? Right. And, and we don't ask that question. Well, I mean, okay, later on there's a similar question about recognizing no other, or etc., etc., but they could very cleverly get through a Temple Recommend interview, even, you know, on that basis. So, um, right, right. Interesting. And, and tell me again what you felt and why you were sad. Why weren't you happy to get rid of these people, these apostates? I wasn't happy to get rid of them cuz I actually—I mean, especially the bishop—I, I loved him to bits. I didn't—it was just that, I suppose, on all—I mean, all the other disciplinary councils I've sat in, there all seem to be a door open, you know? I mean, excommunication is quite a serious matter, you know? That's usually after you've taken all of the other steps to try and avoid it. So when you got to that, and okay, there's some cases—I mean, like you—there's others where it's mandatory, you know? I had, uh—okay, and another case, you know, someone that had served in high office that, you know, commits adultery, okay? There's no, you know, that has to be the way that goes, but you know what? Take an instance like that—I can think of a man right now that was excommunicated, but you know, for the next 5, 10 years he's at every meeting, doing everything possible, and you know, he has to work his way back into the church, and he's never going to do whatever it was he did again. Uh, that's why I said, "Give me a good, clean adultery," because there's something people can do—if that, you know—to turn that around. Um, but this—it just gave me a feeling that night, and that's why I cried about it, was—now this is a much more final thing. These people have gone way beyond that, and, uh, uh, there's no coming back, and as far as I know, they never have come back. And that, and that made you sad. That made you sad? Yes, yeah. As I say, because I'd always thought there was, you know, there was the—and I'm just not saying it was impossible for them—obviously they could have been enlightened or whatever you wanted, you know, something might have got to them, but it was just the feeling I had that night—that's, that's why I just expressed it. It was that, that personal concern for it. Sure, it was one of the worst things that I'd had, um, and you know, dealt with other things, but that was one of the—to me, in, in a sense, was one of the worst things, and I suppose because I'd involved myself in researching some of those things, um, I was even glad to put that aside and not read the, the kind of information they'd given me and get back to, you know, the Ensign and everything else, and, and just felt good about that because it was troubling. So, um, what, what did you think about the Second Anointing when you were reading about it as it related to Blood Atonement and Adam-God theory and all that stuff? Well, I didn't read much about it at the time. Um, they mentioned the Second Endowment to me, um, almost as—you know, I guess I was more familiar with the term "calling and election made sure," and obviously I'd read, um, Elder McConkie and others on that—well, Joseph Smith himself—and, uh, as far as I understood that it was, you know, personal appearance of the Savior to you that would, uh, you know, bring forth the day of judgment, and, um, you know, you were afraid of your—you know, judgment was just brought forward to this life, and, uh, you saw the Sav—he would teach you then whatever else you needed to be taught at that time. So that was my understanding of it. I hadn't gone back into historic—I didn't even know about the actual ordinance—I'd never looked back into those things. I didn't know anything about it. Okay. So your understanding was the calling and election made sure was a visit with the Savior himself? Yeah, yeah. Does that mean that the, the Second Anointing is different from the calling and election made sure, or is it the same thing? It's purported to be the same thing. Okay, okay. So, um, so told to me it is—making—yeah, it's the Second Anointing; it's referred to as a special blessing and also as making sure—you're calling and election—all of those terms—it rolled up into the one thing. Okay. Well, then let's—maybe, maybe let's just go ahead and, and dive right in. So you—I assume you weren't stake president when you received your Second Anointing, right? I was executive secretary then. Okay. So you would stop being secret—stake sec—stake president—and then how many years until you were, you were called in as exe—as, um—oh, it was quite a few years. Um, I think '94, '95. So you're just in regular—about six years. So those six years were you just having regular callings again? Were you like—premier teer—regular call—in fact, I even said when I was released, I just—"You know what? I'd love to be Gospel Doctrine teacher or, or actually, I, I'd love to just sit in the back of the congregation with my family." I mean, at that time I'd had a, you know, especially one of my children had never known me, you know, who was—say 20 years old—had never even known me not be on the stand or something like that, you know? I'd gone through all of that, right? So I was quite happy to be—and also, in that time, from a business point of—I'd also moved to—I'd spent some time in, um, Ireland and, um, Canada, where again we were kind of used on a missionary type basis, but not, not in a, you know, I was more there to try and help and support some leadership and also—and a lot of the time I just worked, you know, happy to be a stake missionary, something like that. I was more, more happy than just sitting down with missionaries and teaching converts. Uh, so I had that sort of experience, and then when I was back in my ward, I was teaching the Gospel Doctrine class or whatever. Uh, I had a very brief period as a ward mission leader in between some things, uh, so that, that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, was I on the high—so—and so you were just, you were just, you know—oh, why did your stake presidency term only last 5 years? I thought that was a 10-year calling. Did, did you terminate that or did you have to move or—no, I've always been willing to do whatever the Brethren do, and that—I won't actually say the reason, but let's just say it was a, a decision by the Quorum of the Twelve. Okay, all right. I, I was happy with whatever. I mean, I, I put forward—I said, "Look, um, I'm happy to continue, um, or I'm happy to be released, whichever way—you just make the decision and I'll do whatever you say." I've never, never in my life have I asked to be released from a calling, and never in my life have I asked for a calling. So there was some, there was some personal stuff that they found out about—not they found out about—no, things that I volunteered and let them make the decision. Okay, their decision, uh, which, on reflection, was probably the wrong one—probably it shouldn't have happened because actually I think the, the stake did suffer in consequence, but anyway, that's a—that doesn't matter. I support—I, I, I said whatever you decide here, and that, that's, that's what was done. Okay. And that's something you don't want to talk about the details. Um, not because it's any reflection on me, I'm just not going to—yeah, I guess I don't think for a public podcast that's an issue that's, that you—right, right, right, right, right. Well, people are going to be thinking, "Well, he must have committed adultery, or he must have like embezzled—embezzled money or—" Okay, I can say absolutely there was no question of any sin on my part or anything like that, and, uh, let's put it—was more business related than anything. Okay? And it did actually allow me to, um, have some time, uh, beneficially to get on with some business. I've always put my career second to the church, and, uh, this was just maybe an appropriate time for me to spend a little bit more time, and that's really what the Brethren saw as well—if I just had a little bit of time like that, cuz that's—then they actually—then wanted me as—on full-time, you know, as mission president and anything else, uh, full-time, and, and get all the business matters out of the way. So that was the idea. So it was no—there was no sin involved whatsoever. It was purely—and it wasn't like business in terms of like embezzlement or some type of financial fraud or anything like that. Okay, okay, okay. I, I—that—I, that's—I just didn't want people to assume the wrong things. I'm not trying to get you to talk about things you're not—I realize some people might think that and, uh, but, uh, no, it, it enabled me to, uh, to move on on some other issues. Okay? And I was very supportive of the—in fact, I was pleased that they called the, the man—stake pres—that, you know, I, I advocated anyway. So, uh, I was very pleased with everything that went on after that. So don't worry. Okay. So, so for six or seven years you just were in different wards, you served in low-level callings, and you were pretty happy? Very happy. You—so

What changed? You say you got called into the to be Secretary of the area presidency?

That's right, yeah. And that was a fantastic, uh, exciting opportunity as well. I loved working with Elder Helm. I spent more time with Elder Helm than Elder Kerr. Um, a man that I thought was very misunderstood. Um, he was in our area, anyway. He was, he was absolutely brilliant, absolutely committed to the church.

Was he not well-liked? No, he was not that popular. Um, Elder Kerr had been more popular than him, and other, you know, when they've got, you know, the these people had an experience of Elder Holland, Elder Holland, right? You know, quite charismatic, as you say about Elder Holland, you know, very charismatic. Elder Helm was not that charismatic in his public persona. If you got to know him as an individual, he was fantastic, right? But he didn't—in fact, you know, I I would try and explain to people just where he was coming from because, uh, I thought he was quite—people thought he maybe a little bit—I mean, even in his family, just as a sort of funny aside, um, he was a stickler for wearing his his, uh, you know, suit, white shirt, and tie all the time. I never saw him without it, even on his so-called P-day. Yet his coun—you know, someone like Elder Wayne Peterson, he was casually dressed on his day off, and uh, be frightened that Elder Hillen might catch him, you know, on the photograph or something, casually dressed. He was just that kind of stiff person. And in fact, the funny thing was his, um, his wife, Carol, once said, um, oh yes, she said, um, "Our children think that if he loosens his tie, his head will fall off." Now that was really the image he gave. Now he wasn't—because we had some great fun together; he was very humorous and a very personable and nice person—but other people didn't see that side of him. They just saw him as this serious person that went around the missions telling the missionaries to triple their baptisms and all the rest of it.

Right. Right. So he was kind of an administrator?

Yeah. He thought a lot about this. I mean, he could bear good testimony, and he, he would tell the stories; he used, you know, Moses and his delegation principles and all the rest of it. Um, he was good; he was a good teacher, but it had to be in that kind of—you had to be there and and understand him before you got it. Someone like an Elder Holland, you know, can get up anywhere and immediately start to draw his audience in. He wasn't that type. And each in—you know, they're all different; they're all different.

Got it. Okay. So, um, so you're just serving in this calling as his secretary, and then what happens?

Okay. I'm, I'm there, and then he calls me into my office—into his office one day, Elder Helm did—and he said, um, uh, first of all, he went through the temple questions with me to make sure I was—that I'm worth—you know, I mean, he already, you know, that's already been happening, but he's, he's just updating my my current worthiness, uh, obviously, to which I answered. And uh, then he said that he had been instructed by uh, President Hinckley to invite me to have my second anointing or special blessing. And he said to me, "Do you know what that is?" And I said, "No." I mean, I was just dumbfounded. I just said, "No." And he said, "Well, would you like to—" He mentioned the date and the time, and that would be myself and my wife, um, and not to mention it to anyone, even my—I said, "What do I say if I'm going away? What do I say to my children?" He just said, "Just make up any reason you like, but just don't tell them what's happening or where you're going. And uh, you know, just say you and your wife are going away for the weekend or something like that." Um, that took me a little bit, but I mean, okay. Cognitive distance or whatever.

Okay. Wait, let's start—let's start—start with how—how cool it felt like—I'm thinking that would be cool; that would be—I would feel, "Oh my gosh, I'm about to be guaranteed a spot in the Celestial Kingdom." Is that what it means, right? But I'm, I'm just giving you my immediate response. I then left his office. I went back in half an hour later and said, "Hey, have I heard you correctly? 'Cause it—it dawned on me what you've just said."

Oh, okay. Okay. I'm—all I'm saying is I didn't quite get that at first. I thought, "What's this—a special blessing?" And then I go out and I start thinking about—he's talking about calling and election, ma—all this kind of thing. I panicked. I went back in and said, "Hey, have I heard you correctly?" And we went through it. Yeah, this is what it is.

What did he tell you it is?

He said it's a special blessing that will be life-changing. He says very few people have had it. Um, again, he stressed the secrecy of it and and those reasons for the secrecy; they don't want the general membership to know about it, um, that it was to be—but it would be very special; it would be life-changing for me. He couldn't tell me what was—he couldn't tell me anything about what would be happening there.

So he didn't say to you, "This would guarantee you entry into the Celestial Kingdom."

He didn't actually say that.

Uh, no, probably not. Okay. Again, I'm trying to think back—a number of years—I don't think—no. What he then said to me was, "Go away," and he recommended various writings by Bruce R. McConkie. Now I know maybe Elder McConkie isn't that favored at the moment in the in the church, but as far as the second anointing or the calling and election made sure, apparently he was the authority on it in what he had written. So I was asked to go away and read about that—in like—in—in Mormon Doctrine—in the book Mormon Doctrine—Mormon Doctrine—and others. I think he wrote some on the New Testament as well, didn't he? He had, um, he had about three or four volumes on the New Testament, um, where—because I think Peter mentions calling and election made sure—so he elaborates on that. It was quite extensive. I did quite a bit of reading from different sources—all by Bruce R. McConkie though. Um, and in that, it was very clear-cut what it was—it's making sure your calling and election. I went back to—all say, "Yes, I've read that; I understand that that's what it's about." Now, me being me, figured, "I'm not ready for this, you know. I'm—I haven't yet proven—I'm—I'm not—you know, this isn't—I can't believe it's happening to me." Um, so I'm going through all sorts of things of—what not—that I had anything major to repent of or anything, but you—you know, you just don't feel that you're—you're at that level—you're—that—you know—that any of us are that worthy. So, um, "I'm going to go and read from Mormon Doctrine what it says about calling and election."

Sure. Is that all right?

Sure. Yeah. It says, "Those members of the church who devote themselves wholly to righteousness, living by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, make their calling and election sure; that is, they receive the more sure word of prophecy, which means that the Lord seals their exaltation upon them while they are yet in this life." Peter summarized the course of righteousness which the Saints must pursue to make their calling and election sure, and then referring to his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration with James and John, said that those three had received this more sure word of prophecy. And then it refers to Second Peter, chapter 1, and it goes on to say, Joseph Smith taught, quote, "After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins, and receives the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, which is the first comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, 'Son, thou shalt be exalted.' When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man has—has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and election made sure. Then it will be his privilege to receive the other comforter—to receive the other comforter—is to have Christ appear to him and to see the visions of eternity."

Okay. So that's actually saying that there is some type of visitation with Christ, potentially?

Right. Yes. Okay. All right. Um, so so that's the kind of stuff that you read as you—as you prepared to go to the temple? Is that right?

That's correct. Yes.

Any—any re—like what were your reactions? What did you think? Like you—you said you started to feel that you weren't worthy?

Well, yeah. I—I hope that's a natural reaction.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, which one of it—I mean, you know, you answer Temple recommend questions; that doesn't mean—say you're perfect. Um, you're trying—everything your best, but—do I get angry thoughts? Do I do this? Do I, you know—there are things—so yes, I spent a lot of time prior to that and a lot of time on my knees and and and considering all sorts of things, 'cause as far as I was concerned, I'm—I'm going to meet the Savior, and he knows—you know, this isn't meeting a a state president or a bishop; this is meeting the Savior.

So you thought you might meet the Savior at the temple?

Uh, I didn't think I—well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What—you—to say—you read out what—what's happening—I didn't think I'd need to say too much. I mean, if—if he's—I think he's going to have more to say to me than I'm going to say to him.

So you were getting ready to meet the Savior?

Yeah. Wow. Okay. And—and was your wife invited?

Yes. Yes. So it was something to be done together.

Together. That's right.

But she wasn't in the original meeting where the invitation was extended?

No, no. She wasn't. It was—it was me—then that invited her. Okay. Um, and I then booked—I mean, what we did—it was—it was on—it was on a Sunday, which is an unusual thing, so I actually booked—I—funny thing was, I phoned the Preston Temple, uh, to arrange a room for—for us on Saturday night. I decided I wasn't going to drive up there. Um, Elder Ballard and Elder Hillen were going by one of the Huntsman's jets; they—they were traveling in that way, and I was to drive up to the Preston Temple with my wife on—on the—well, and I decided—would just stay there at the—you know, what better thing than to stay at the temple overnight and and walk in the grounds hand in hand and just prepare. So I phoned up the temple just to book a room, and as soon as I gave my name, they said, "Oh yes, yes, you're here for the—the special occasion."

Wow. And they book you in?

And when we got there, I didn't realize they gave us the honeymoon suite. They just treated—so well. We had a honeymoon suite at the Preston Temple. I didn't even know they had such things.

Um, in—in the temple itself?

On the—Yeah. Well, yeah, the—there's accommodation at—actually at the temple, um, and this was the honeymoon suite, um, that—that was reserved for us. And uh, I thought it was just absolutely fantastic. We had a—you know, we walked around hand in hand the temple grounds that night and retired to a—you know, honeymoon suite, ready to get up the next morning for this very special, uh, occasion.

Wow. And again, what did you say to your wife? What did you guys talk about?

Well, she wouldn't—I tried to get her to read the same things as I did, but she—again—and sometimes sisters—like they just seem to have a more simple faith, and you know—whatever—it didn't—I don't know—I guess I was making a bigger issue of it than—than possibly she was. I don't know—or maybe she was just—she was just relaxed about it. Seemed more relaxed than I—certainly internally—that didn't seem to be too much of a problem. It was just something we could do together. Okay. She recognized it was going to the temple; it was a very special thing to do, but you know, um, I don't know that she understood—hang on—we could be meeting the Savior here, um, or—and I didn't know at that stage whether we met him then or it came afterwards or or whatever, but all I knew was this—this is serious business; this is—this is earth-shattering, really. Um, and I can't talk about—I mean, we went there early—well, we went to the temple, as I say, on the Saturday, and we actually bumped into some ward members that were there for a wedding, and uh, they actually asked us, "Well, what—what are you doing here on a Saturday night?" And again, we had to just, uh, kind of duck the issue and not—not tell them why we were there.

Right. So in some ways, even after that—the—when I say lie—it was easy enough for me because—because people knew my position in the church; it would have been hard if I didn't have this—I could easily say, "Well, look, I—even if they found out I was at the temple on the—on the Sunday, that you know, I was asked just to go there to—to meet with Elder Ballard and and uh, Elder Helm," and that would have been appropriate for my uh, calling anyway, so it wasn't a big—you know, it could easily get past over; it wasn't a big deal.

Got it. Okay. So, um, so tell us what the day—all that went into the actual experience.

Uh, well, obviously we went—obviously with our recommend and our—our temple robes. I think I can say temple robes without, uh, saying anything else about them. And uh, yeah, we went into the temple. Um, I think I had been told there—we wouldn't be on our own—that there would be some other couples there as well, so we weren't the only couple. Uh, I think there—four or five couples, including us.

Okay. And were these people you—you would have known? Were these people that you would have—

I did—when I saw—I mean—none of us knew before that day that each of us had been invited, um, but when I saw—obviously when we saw one another, I think of the five couples, I knew four. It was one—so it was that kind of a situation. Um, one of them which I did know is actually a returning mission president who'd been serving in our area, and he's—he's actually American; he was on his way back to America, uh, but again, just—'cause some people speculate, "Oh, who gets these? Is it mission presidents?" No, in this case—and I got the impression he was getting it not because he was mission president, but because there was another reason. So it's—it's—it's hard to say who categorically gets these and who doesn't. Um, obviously all of the Seventy—well, at least the first and second quorums do. I won't go further. Anyway, so we met other people there, so of the—you know, I knew all but I think there was one couple I didn't know.

Okay. We're greeted there by Elder Ballard and um, also, um, a counselor in this—in the temple presidency, because the actual Temple president, he was away because his wife was sick in hospital. Otherwise it would have been the temple president. Normally it would be the temple president.

Um, the Apostle and another General Authority. In this case, Elder Peterson was also there. He actually asked if he could be there just because of the personal relationship with me that we had. Um, normally it would just be one other G—you know, you'd have the—the Apostle and one General Authority as a witness. In this case, there were two General Authorities as well as the Apostle.

So there's two General Authorities and an Apostle?

Yeah. Wow.

And it was Elder Ballard?

Elder Ballard. Yeah. Huh. Okay. And so what—what do you do? You go in—you dress in your temple clothes?

Uh, yes. We—we—we gathered—again, I'm going back a few years now—but we gathered in the uh, in the chapel area, then—yes, we put on our—our temple robes. We went into a special room, um, in the—preserved in the—in the temp—well, it was a room that was sort of set apart for this, um, where we had—or we started with our washing and anoint—you know, we had—you know, Elder Ballard would, um, wash our feet and—

Hang on. What? Okay. So okay, so you're—Elder Ballard—again, I'm not—I'm being a bit careful now as to what I actually say.

Sure.

I mean, it's in the write-up. I know—to be honest, it's also—when I say my write-up, it's—it's actually on the internet in almost verbatim from the early days of the church—the 1840s or whatever. Um, I think you can read on there the exact way in which the thing—the only thing that was different in—in those days, they would have the—the thing in the temple, and then there'd be a second part to it which was done in the couple's home. In our case, the second part wasn't done in our home; it was done in another room in the temple. It was done in—in a sealing room in the temple.

Are you—are you—are you comfortable talking about what—what things actually happen? Actually happen?

Yeah. I got—I have to jog my memory as—as to what happened, but um [Music] um, yeah. So—so Elder Ballard is there with you—with—um, a couple other General Authorities. What—what happened from there?

Okay. Elder Ballard explained what would be happening: We would—to have our feet washed and be anointed by him. He said he was acting under the direction of the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. Uh, after that, we would be allocated a sealing room for each couple to be alone and perform the second part of the ordinance. We would then all meet again with Elder Ballard in the celestial room of the temple. Okay. So that's what he had said to us. Um, so he then, uh, you know, I was beckoned to sit on a particular chair, and Elder Ballard knelt down and washed my feet, then dried them.

Now what's that like? Ah, can you imagine? I've got an Apostle down there on his knees. I mean, what's going through me is that—the New Testament scripture when the Savior did that with his Apostles, right?

What was it? How would you describe it—the feeling or the experience—thing?

I think Elder Hillen was right: It's life-changing. The whole thing—you—you can't believe—you're out of this world; you—you—you're in heaven.

Were you crying?

Oh, you don't stop. I don't think everyone's tear—when you say crying—tearful all the time. It's just so touching. Yeah. And so there's this—there's this Apostle of God, this beautiful, thoughtful man, yeah, wash—washing your feet.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And then he did it to your wife as well?

Yes.

And did he—did he say a prayer beforehand? Did he explain what it meant?

Did he explain what it meant? Yeah. And—and after—in the celestial room, he explained more as well.

Okay. Okay. So I'm getting ahead of myself. So he washes your feet and your wife's—certainly. We started the whole thing with prayer as well. I mean, obviously I admit that—omitted it, but uh, yeah, obviously anything in the church is—is started with prayer anyway. Okay. And then after that, uh, there was the anointing—so the oil on the top of my head. Um, so I was ordained—I mean, you—okay, there's other ordinances where one is um, ordained to become such and such, right? In this—in this case, the wording was different. I was actually ordained a king and a priest unto the most high God.

Sorry if I—

No, no, no. So—so you were—you were literally ordained a king?

Ordained a king. Yeah. It wasn't to be—C—it was—right—ordained a king. Right. Uh, obviously to rule and reign in the house of Israel forever. Um, then, you know, blessings on my head, brow, eyes, etc., were anointed with oil with—and spe—specific blessings were given, uh, relating to knowing, understanding, and speaking the truth. And the ordinance gave me the fullness of the priesthood, and a blessing was given which included things like the sealing power to bind and loose, curse and bless, the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Holy Spirit of Promise bestowed. Um, this was an interesting one: Blessed to live as long—

As life is desirable. I mean, that's a powerful, you know, sudden you think, hang on. Um, I mentioned you before with Elder Holland, years before when I'd had that sort of scare about cancer, which turned out to be benign. So it wasn't, but you know, at that time my wife and I thought I had six months to live. So to be blessed to live as long as life is desirable, and in blessed to attain unto the godhood and power to be a member of a godhood was bestowed upon me. I was sealed up to eternal life and power to have the heavens open, so the ceiling, as far as I've understood at the time, that that's it, it's done. Um, the only other thing, and and that was the other thing that you you can read in Makoni, is what happens then if if you do commit some kind of sin and what what happens. But the idea is that that was it, your judgment's made and you're sealed.

Um, so we were charged not to reveal to other individuals that we'd received this ordinance, uh, and again my wife was anointed and ordained a um queen and a priestess. Okay, just as I was a king and a priest. Got it. And again, how's she like it? Oh, again tears were right. And then the second part of it, we go into a a ceiling room. Each couple was assigned a different ceiling room, so you go in on your own. We were told that we were to go in there and the wife was to wash the husband's feet, and then she was to put her hands on his head and give her him a blessing, whatever she felt inspired to say. So she put her hands on your head and gave you a blessing. Oh, now if you want to talk about crying, that's when it really happened. Wow. Do you remember what she said? Uh, not really, not at this stage. Now I didn't write it down, but it was powerful. I mean it was uh, you obviously the the love that was conveyed and everything else that came through. No, I don't remember the specifics now of of what was said, but all I know is we wept after that and just held one another and um, you know, probably spent longer in the room than than maybe we should have done, but uh uh that was it. It was a bowl of water and towel, and my wife, just as Mary did to Jesus, this is what it was. It it just comes and drives them. Um, it was very moving, very personal, uh, you know, as a couple we experienced tremendous joy. So you got your feet, you got your feet washed twice. Twice? Yeah, by Apostle and once by my wife. Yeah, and but you didn't wash her feet? No, no, no, she did it to me. And you didn't, you didn't give her a blessing? I didn't give her a blessing either. No. Wow, that's kind of cool. This is it. This is this is woman in the priesthood. This is what it's about. It it's there, huh? You know, woman does have priesthood in the temple, right? You may not have, they may not have it outside, but in the temple there are this uh a woman has the, you know, joins in the priesthood. So she gave me a blessing. Yeah, beautiful.

So then, so then you guys go back and Elder Balor talks to you. What does he say? Well, this is it. He comes in, he asks into the celestial room and summarized what had happened that day and ask if there were any questions, because they could only be answered at that time. You know, we can't walk out of there and suddenly ask a question. Um, now my question I had on my mind, and I didn't even I just said wanted to say to him, well, okay, so when do we meet the Savior? Um, you know, up to that point I hadn't seen him, so I said, when's this going to be? But I didn't even do I I the feeling in the room, I just couldn't even I couldn't get that out of my mouth. No one asked one solitary question. Maybe they were all asked, think wanted to do the same thing. I don't know, but um, I didn't ask. No one asked a question. Um, he so then he volunteered some things and said, look, don't even ask me about what happens if you now sin, because we don't even want to go there, right? But I'd already read extensively with Makoni there, which which basically said that you know, after you've had this sort ordinance that um obviously uh if you were to commit sin um then that's not going to deny you the Celestial Kingdom. You know, you may have to be handed over to the buffetings of Satan for a period, but you know you're going to atone yourself for that and uh and and you're still going to get there. Uh, the only um exception of obviously was uh the unpardonable sin. So providing you didn't do that um you you got it, you you're you're home. When I say and the unpardonable sin being denying the Holy Ghost. Yeah, being a son, being a son of perdition. That's right. You deny the Holy Ghost and supposedly then you become a son of perdition and you're cast into outer Darkness uh with Satan and his followers and you never do inherit a kingdom of Glory, even the the celestial. Uh, I guess that's what's you know, since then I've expressed, well, hang on, you updating this in my situation now, does that mean I'm actually worse off than Adolf Hitler who killed 6 million Jews and any other number of people? But anyway, that's a side question. Seems a bit uh Anyway, that's if I am a son of perdition, of course I may not be. Okay, and so and so you um and so you so this happens. Anything else happened in the temple that was worth noting? No, I think that was, I mean, we left the celestial. I mean, I can't even express now how wonder, I mean, I think you you've already felt a glimpse of it just from going through your own thoughts. John might be, I mean, you just walk, you go out, you're not even walking on the ground. Um, we went home. Um, I'm just delay, I mean, I'm now I I thought I was committed to the church before then. Now suddenly I you what do you want me to do? What mountain do you want me to move? What do you want me to do? I'll do anything. Uh, that that's the you this is the the thing that it gives you the feeling that you you come away with. I actually because the day before there had been uh an area training meeting, that's why Elder Ballard was was there, where we had all of the state presidents and uh and Mission presidents in uh for training and um that I went home that night, you know what I just sat down and I hadn't taken any notes of any of those training meetings, but I just wrote I just hammered out a paper on what Elder Ballard had taught and I took that into the area of presidency and they were just bowled up. Now I'm not taking credit credit for this myself in in terms of what that was, just the way I was feeling and on on overdrive and if you like feeling inspired at the time, but I put together a paper which we put out to all of the state presidents really summarizing that the whole message and what they were to do and to get them to come back uh with their specific goals based on those things that had been outlined and therefore we would then hold them accountable during the next 6 months or 12 months or whatever. So it was just such an uplifting experience. You know, you just wanted to do whatever you could to move the work forward, right? And I know when I when that paper was read by the the area prescy every one of them was just bowled over by it, but again I'm not taking credit as uh you know that was just Tom Phillips doing that. There was it was Tom Phillips on steroids at that time, just because of the uh the impact of that such an ordinance that that would have on. And again, okay, John, you I know you're doing sort of Clinical Psychology and you maybe understand more about you know what I you know apart from the spiritual aspect, anything else that might have motivated me at that time. So I I just performed I performed better than I had before. I think. Sure. Yeah, I don't I don't like to psychoanalyze people that way. I just if someone has a beautiful experience I want to say God bless you. You know. Yeah, that's how I feel about it. Okay. Um uh okay, so how in the world do you go from that experience to losing your your faith? Uh, you don't certainly don't go there immediately. Remember with me it was about another year and a half went by when I was again at that point of um and I I think I don't know whether it was just in whether we said in this interview or before we actually started recording that um I was really just preparing for full-time Mission. You as far as I was concerned I was going to be a full-time missionary now for the rest of my life in the church. That's all I wanted to do with myself and my wife. You were you were preparing to be, were you done with work, were you retired by this point? That's what I was planning to do. Yes, I was I was just coming to the tail end of that and saying, right now this is what we're going to do from now on, and that's what the Brethren had understood. I'd get to that point where i' I'd finish with everything. I'd put in my mission papers uh they were saying they wanted then as the mission papers went in just recommend me as a mission president, but whatever way it went it didn't really matter as long as I was able to go out and teach the gospel. So I just took that OPP as I said I've I've in past i' i' had experiences with uh spoiling manuscript and things like that, the the question of using ad du in the Book of Mormon, all the usual things about Jesus being born at Jerusalem and all of those myriad things that people put up uh which I you know weren't anything as as as far as I was concerned, but what I was concerned about was obviously people who would be genuinely because of their scientific understanding would be skeptical about the message we were or or the scriptures and therefore miss out on the church because of their knowledge. That's what was concerning me. So I thought that hang on, I need at least to be in tune and anyone that I supervise needs to know how to uh uh speak to people or present or or answer the questions because you know someone had said to me years ago about the flood and things like that and I'd even been at a museum with my wife where we saw dinosaurs and she'd asked me that question. Well, I gave the standard kind of uh Church answers which satisfied her and satisfied me at the time, but now I kind of look for thought, well, no, hang on, if I'm actually saying this to someone that knows their subject they're either going to call me an idiot or they're going to be very kind and polite and just sort of um but you know there's no way they're going to get converted because this is going to be a roadblock. So I've actually got to find out what is wrong with the scientific methodology or not necessarily wrong, but at least some kind of uh possibility that it may not be quite right at the moment and could be discovered later on that something else happens. Okay, so was there was there like someone that you knew that had fallen away? Was there? I didn't know anyone that had fallen away for those reasons. And so what again what brought it up? What made you care enough to want to look into it? Me just again studying The Book of Mormon. So again, it's very clear in the Book of Mormon to me at least and I think to from all I've read from the prophets in the past that there was no death on this Earth prior to the fall of Adam. So that I believe 100% to be true at. So you're just doing your personal scripture study. So that's what it says. I've believed it all my life. No question about it. But aha, if I was saying that to a scientist or or not even to a scientist but to most children at school these days they say, no, the dinosaurs were here 65 million years ago. There was this there was that you know this place is 4 billion years old. How do I answer that? Okay, the 4 billion year old Earth we can e you know, Joseph Smith even talked about things like that, but certainly mankind or the hominids that we are now um apparently date back no more than 6,000 years when you take the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants into account. So that I believe 100% at the time uh you we're going back now to whatever it was 2003. I believe this completely to be true. Now I need to show to a so if a scientist says to me, you know what, there's cave drawings in France that we've dated is 30,000 years old that were obviously drawn by hominids um you know Homo sapiens sapiens um and uh you know there's these things and there's there's those things and I go and I look in museums and and they're right. There are these things. So how do I explain that? So it must be that the carbon dating they do is not correct. And I'm again as a non-scientist thinking of Industrial Revolution and pumping carbon into the atmosphere and all sorts of things that could interfere with these things. So I started to uh try and find out more about that subject. And then you just you started to have scientific questions. Huh? Yeah, I just looked. I said, okay, what what's the problem with with radiocarbon dating? And I I studied that and I couldn't find, okay, it may be out plus or minus 5% or whatever, you know, something if they say something's 40,000 years old maybe it's 35,000 or or 45,000 years whatever the thing is, but my problem was if anything was more than 6,000 years old that was human related uh I've got a problem here because that means why is this why is God in the Book of Mormon saying there was no death yeah when we dig up things and find that there's things that have died yeah clearly there isn't any death yeah so there's the claim that there's no Death Before Adam and Eve that that Adam and Eve are the start yeah and also I believe the doctrine of Covenant says that the Earth is 6,000 years old exactly. Section 77 it says it talks about the temporal the temporal existence. So you know, oh, getting into all sorts of other creation periods, that's a different matter, but what we know of our temporal period it's 6,000 years old. We're now in the seventh with the seventh seal is supposedly opened, right? Right. 6,000 years ago was the fall of Adam. Now I'm not even getting into how old was Adam and Eve, were they billions of years old? You know, how long were they in the garden? I'm not even I'm not even going there, right? I'm just saying looking at the scripture there was there was two people 6,000 years ago that are the progenitors of the human race. You know, the prophets have said we are all related to Adam and Eve and prior to them there was no death um animals live together you know in Harmony and and all the rest of it and no and and the Bible gives lineage as I understand it from from Adam and Eve down to Abraham which again says 6,000 years. Yeah, yeah. So I mean there's no real way to wiggle out of that um and so if we have if we have writing on walls from 20,000 years ago how do we reconcile that with people being born 14,000 years before Adam and Eve? Yeah, left the garden, right? Or skeletons that are one and a half million years old and you know things like that um let alone getting into dinosaurs that are 65 or 100 million years old. But so those things because they obviously died whatever that was there with the the whole definition of fossils is you know these things died um so the Book of Mormon says there was no death. So that was the big issue that I had. Well, how do I reconcile the the these you know how can they both can't be true um right so maybe I've misunderstood The Book of Mormon or I've misunderstood the science, but I was really going into the science. I also then wrote to a particular University with about three or four questions and I just said, is there any chance first of all that there was no death on the earth before 6000? Is there any chance that we were related that everyone living today is related to two people that you know were were living 6,000 years ago? Is there any possibility that there was a global flood about 4 and a half thousand years? Those sort of questions I put to them. Oh, and also I think I threw in about the uh uh Israelite uh being the or the American Indian coming from uh Jerusalem 600 BC or whatever. So you you wrote to a museum? No, I wrote to a a university information science information Department with those four specific questions. Do do was it a letter like a written letter? Um, no, actually it was an email. It was an email. Do you still have the response they gave you? Um, I'm not sure because I've changed computers. I even change I don't know. I'd have to look at that. I may that's okay. Okay, but do you remember which university it was? The Smithsonian, the the United States Smithsonian. Yeah, United States Smithsonian that had a sort of a public information Department. Okay, okay. So you wrote the Smithsonian. All right, all right. What what's wrong with that? Is it uh no, it's it's spian the spian kind of famous within Mormonism because I know because of their state I know their anthropology department, but this wasn't their anthropology department. This was um and and there's no mention of Mormonism here either. This could have been a Christian that was writing to them. No, no, no, I just I'm not laughing at you. I just think it's really cool that here you are this sincere man believing in the church but wanting to gather the scientific data and you just think, well, I better write the Smithsonian. You know, well, it's what came up on my search I guess. Sure, sure. It wasn't that I went out and I mean ideally I would have written to Oxford University being in in the UK or of course something like that, but whenever I put the search in they came up and made it easy for me and there was a department rather than going to different professors or or you know and how would I get an answer anyway? So they first of all wrote back saying no, no chance of any so but I I didn't they said no chance of any of that of any of that, but I then didn't even accept that. I wrote back to him. I said, look, I don't want to know that this is any of these four are actually true as for you. I just want to know even if there's a 1% chance because I actually stated and you know what I had in mind Elder Holland when I said this. I said, because I know a lot of very bright intelligent people that believe this you far brighter than I will ever be, right? So I wrote back a second time and said, is there any even if there's an infinite even if you're saying to me, look, we're 99% % sure that this is you know yeah it's like it's like the movie give me is it it's like the movie Dumb and Dumber. You mean I have a 1% chance? I've never seen that. Yeah. So I was I was actually asking for that if they gave me a 1%, you know what I would probably say, okay, that's enough. I need right now, right? That no, they wrote back 100%. Oh, they said 100%. Wow. There is no there is no 1%. This is fact. Um, wow. These things cannot H and when you think about it you can do D I mean DNA St the mitochondrial DNA they have done studies that they our most common female ancestor lived 170,000 years ago, right? Not 6,000 years ago. And you know they can demonstrate that when I say 170 between 150 and 200 who's you know we're not going to argue too much about the the precise date, but it's certainly was longer ago than 6,000 years ago, right? So those I got those sort of responses then when I get into the book of Abraham. Wait, how did you feel getting that answer back from the Smithsonian? I'm just I'm imagining you opening

Up your email inbox. You open up that email. How did how did that feel? Uh, got it in a way because I’m still, you know, I I I believe this church to be true, and now here’s here factual evidence that this aspect, anyway, is not true.

And to be honest, I take the Elder Holland position, you know, that the the strength of this church is based on the Book of Mormon. If that’s not true, this church isn’t true. Even if the Book of Mormon were true, it doesn’t necessarily now follow that the church is true, because it could be the Community of Christ or the FLDS or anyone else that takes the Book of Mormon. Um, but certainly if the Book of Mormon is not the word of God, if it has falsities in it, and here I’m now seeing falsities about the the death before 6,000 years, uh, the the flood, the Tower of Babel, let’s get into the Lamanites and turning skin black and all of these kinds of things, and then turning white when you become righteous and all of these issues, uh, you know, these are testable. You can test these in a scientific way whether they’re true or not, and they all come up as false. Um, there’s no semblance of of Truth in in these matters, so it’s starting to crumble. I’m saying, hang on, the Book of Mormon may not be true; it may not be the word of God, but I’m still wrestling because I’ve got all these other things, and including the second anointing in my mind, and you know what, I’ve got the fear of death in me because if I become a son of perdition, I’m done, right? I’m done. Yeah, that you know what, I had nightmares over that, nightmares. That’s how much, and with your psychology, you may understand that better than I do, but that was deeply embedded in my brain, soul, whatever you want to call it.

Sure. That scared me to death, so I’ve got to be sure now. This so this didn’t happen overnight. I’m spending months on this in the me, sorry. And you said Book of Abraham, Book of Abraham, cuz okay. And I went to a m Museum. I saw a hyalis. I saw exactly the fact similar that we’ve got in the Book of Abraham, and I go to a curator or I go to an Egyptologist, what does this mean? And they can give me an exact translation; none of it matches what Joseph Smith said it translates as, and it’s all just magical fery text to get these people through the underworld, and uh, you know, even the Coptic vases and everything that Joseph Smith said is they there for the heart and the lungs and and what whatever else that they uh take out of the body, not what he said they were, right? So this whole thing is unraveling. I’m in a museum, and this, you know, there’s this Museum curators know more about Egyptology than the Prophet Joseph Smith ever knew, right? And yet he’s supposed to have had this Revelation; he’s supposed to be able to do this by the power of God, and this is supposed to be the writing of Abraham. It’s all unra—it’s not. Now the relevance that then has to the Book of Mormon is if if he lied about the Book of Abraham and translating that, is that not an indication he may also have lied about the Book of Mormon? So that’s hence the, you know, the re relevance there. It shows a a modus operandi for uh, for Joseph Smith in this case.

Now, now just to be fair, apologists would speak up there, and even Elder Holland would speak up there and say he it doesn’t necessarily have to be that he lied; it could be that he he he had the Scrolls and he thought he was translating, but it he was channeling from God, Holy Scripture, um, and he didn’t even understand the full inspiration behind the process, so he wasn’t lying, you know. That would be—oh, I think the church’s position today on the church’s position today is exactly that. And let me also tell you, I’ve gone through all of this doubt. Do you know what convinced me? Two BYU professors and two General Authorities convinced me 100% the church was not true. Oh, whoa. How? How? First of all, Professor Steven Jones, I think he’s a physicist or a cosmologist at BYU. He wrote a paper about Evolution and about death before Adam. He actually says in that paper—and I haven’t got it to hand so I can’t quote verbatim—but the the general message is to his students, don’t even argue Evolution; it happened. This Earth is billions of years old; no question about it. There has been life and death on this planet for billions of years now. How do I then Professor Jones reconcile that with the Book of Mormon? Right. Well, the way I reconcile that, as I recall of his argument, uh, nothing up until the fall of Adam had a spirit in it; it was purely a physical body, a physical being. Therefore, he’s giving a different meaning to the word death, death being—and you’ll quote scriptures to say death is the separation of the spirit from the body. Now he then has another problem. Okay, what actually animated those people or those things before the fall of Adam, animals? And his answer to that question is they were directly acted upon obviously by the spirit of God, you know, because they didn’t have spirits of their own. So there’s this kind of universal spirit that was floating around animating them. Well, I’m sorry, Professor Jones, but the way that argument falls down is the next question: If the spirit of God is animating those animals, how come they’re all eating, they’re all killing and eating one another? That does sound too Godlike to me. So I rather thought that this was a professor that knows that there’s death before 6,000 years ago, but somehow he’s got to reconcile it in his own mind for his own personal satisfaction, his own personal religion, or whatever reason to the scripture, and and it’s not a very good answer, unless of course God’s okay with animals eating each other. That’s just the way God wants animals to behave. No, you know, they they do awful things to one another, and people—you know what, we’ve got we’ve got skulls with axes in them. That was humans that put axes through the skulls of other humans. That all happened prior to 6,000 years ago, and they were being animated by the spirit of God. I’m sorry; it begs some questions there, that right? It’s problem—it’s problematic about our understanding of a loving, compassionate God, right? Now, same question, which of course isn’t scriptural, because the scriptural the scriptures allow God to do all sorts of, you know, to be behind all sorts of difficult things, right?

Exactly. From the scriptures, he could be quite a monster at times, so I mean that would be consistent with, you know—okay, I don’t accept that. I accept that as a as a someone trying to reconcile something in their brain. So for you, that’s not the type of God you want to worship. That that is is that is not an answer; that’s a that’s a they’re trying to get out—that’s a get-out clause that will satisfy some people. Now, same question to Elder Helm, who was an ortho—a dentist and an orthodontist. He said, “Tom, of course there’s been life and death on this planet,” he said, “for millions or billions of years.” He said, “I’ve held skulls when I did my Dentistry that are tens of thousands of years old.” He said, “Also, we wouldn’t have oil and gas on this planet unless there had been de—” So he’s again, he’s saying the same as Professor Jones: Don’t even argue the point. However, the way he reconciles it is he doesn’t mention about the spirit; he just says Adam was the first man made in the image of God; all the hominids prior to him weren’t in the image of God. So then when I said, well, what happened to them, because now apparently all the human race is related to Adam, where did all those hominids go in 6,000 years? He just said, “I don’t know.” So again, that just showed me he just used a simple thing to reconcile his mind because he wants to believe it’s true. So the and this is the problem when you get into apologetics. Well, you know, there’s some I think quite dishonest apologetics that goes around. Let’s take the Book of Abraham and Michael Rhodes. Yes, he does exactly what you say; he agrees that that translation of the papyri is not the what Joseph Smith said it was. However, it may be a catalyst. Why the heck then did the church go into debt to buy that papyri for $25,000, which I assume was a fairly significant sum of money in those days? And why does it say at the beginning—I don’t if they’ve changed it—but but when I read the scriptures, it said right at the beginning, the heading of the Book of Abraham, that this is a translation by the Prophet Joseph Smith of the papyri that he acquired from Michael Chandler. The church states that they don’t say he used it as a catalyst. You see, and this is my issue with so-called apologetics in the church. I I’ll mention, you know, Brother Millet, Brother Peterson, the—all they will just sidestep the issue and and and go on to something that in itself is dishonest or even change the doctrine. You, we go back to the Lamanites; it becomes a limited geography theory; they’re somewhere in Guatemala or whatever. No, I’ve been to Hil Kamura; we have a Hil Kamura pageant every year. Joseph Smith, right up to President Hinckley, said all of the American Indians in North America. President Kimball went—uh, pres—yeah, Kimball went even further about the Polynesians. It’s been clear-cut all my life. I taught my children a song called “Book of Mormon Stories” about the Lamanites inheriting the land and all the rest of it, right? You’re sing—you’re sounding upset right now. Are you upset?

Sorry. Sorry. No, no, no. I like it. I I’m not saying I like it, but I want I want I want to help our listeners understand what you’re feeling; that’s all. What are you feeling? What I’m feeling right now is what I—because I actually went to the Apologetics cuz I was looking for answers. I looked at a Steven Jones or a Michael Rhodes or a Hugh Nibley or or anyone. I looked at past end signs to give me answers, and what I saw was sides—you know, the usual things. So they don’t even—I think Brother Millet made a a statement one time; he said, “Don’t answer the question they ask; answer the question that they should have asked,” and that to me sums up apologetics, unfortunately. And you—no, answer the question, bring it up to date. I I gave specific questions to Elder Holland, who you purports—okay, wait, wait, let’s not let’s not jump to Elder Holland quite yet; is that okay? Let me ask you, let me ask you a question. So so okay, we’re back at the point where you’re like prepping to become a mission president, right? And you know, assuming that you think that call is imminent, um, and you start stumbling upon these problems, right? Well, you have—there has to be a point—you know, so many people choose to just compartmentalize and turn it off; they’re just like, “Nope, the church is true. Nope, I’ve had that spiritual witness. Nope, I I’ve I I know it’s true; the spirit has born witness. I’ve had all these good experiences.” What what kept you from just turning it off? Like, what was behind that? Because there so many people don’t go there; they don’t feel like it’s safe; they feel like it’s dangerous; they feel like it’s scary or it’s or it’s Satan or it’s evil, right?

Well, I I’ll I’ll use a word, but some people might find that offensive, um, but before I say it, I will say I was only a member of the church because I believed 100% it to be true, the one and only true church on the face of the Earth. That’s the only reason I didn’t join as a good club or something that would benefit my family or get me on in my career or anything like that. I joined it for only one reason: It was true. Now, if I then find out it’s not true, I’m sorry, I’m out. I’m not going to just continue in something that purports—I don’t mind if it then admits it’s not true or something like that—but if it purports to be something which it isn’t, I’m sorry, I don’t I don’t go there. Um, I can’t sleep at night if I’m going to do that, and I’ll just use the word integrity—my—or if you like, my own personal integrity would not allow me to compartmentalize. And therefore, what am I going to do? Teach my children and grandchildren something that’s supposedly true which I know isn’t true? Not going to do it. I’m sorry. I’ll I’ll give up everything; I I’ll risk everything. Now, Elder Hilum even warned me on that. He said, “Tom, it’s not worth losing your family over.” I see what he was saying. Now, he was actually suggesting I just lie and play—play the role, just play the role, and everyone will be happy. I—okay, maybe it’s a failing in me again; I’d have to ask a psychologist that—I cannot live with myself if that’s what I do. I’d rather live with myself happily than subscribe to something that is patently untrue. And now I find out, and I’m I’m sorry if you felt I was getting upset. But no, no, wait. I I I what I was feeling was cuz at the time I felt that—no, these—I had so much esteem for the Brethren; it’s just not true. I’ve I’ve loved and adored them all my life, so I assume they just didn’t know these things. So all I had to do—like, even recently, write a letter to Elder Holland, and I’d be treated kindly and respectfully, and the issues would be addressed. Instead of—no, shoot the messenger, you know, right? Okay, so for you it was about truth and integrity.

Truth and integrity. Yeah. And which I thought that’s what the TRU—the church was about. Every time you’re interviewed for a temple recommend, that’s what you’re asked: Are you totally honest in your dealings with other people and things like that, right? Well, what I found out—do you know what? When I find out that the Book of Abraham—we’d had the papyri since 1967, and I joined the church in 1969. How come no one ever told me that? Even when I asked Elder Hel about—he said, “I didn’t know we had the papyri.” Now, I don’t know whether that’s true or statement or not from him. I find that surprising because he was once the General Sunday School president of the church, but anyway, he said he wasn’t even aware that we had the papyri; he couldn’t even answer that question for me. We’ve had it there, and we’ve known right from Hugh Nibley’s days that it ain’t what Joseph Smith said it was. We’ve known that, but we prevaricate, and we put—or want to say we—I read articles in the *Ensign* by Michael Rhodes and Hugh Nibley and all the others that somehow sidestepped the issue and made it all sound all right, and it was acceptable to me, but that is, you know, I don’t like those kind of apologetics. To me, it’s what I asked Elder Holland in in the letter: If I’ve stated anything which is untrue, please correct me on it, you know, show me where I’m wrong; that I accept. But don’t just come up with some spurious argument that’s got nothing to do with it and bamboozle me. So sorry. No, no, it’s good; we’re gonna get there. So so so you’re sitting there, and you’ve decided you’re scared to learn these things, but it’s but it’s your love of Truth and your commitment to the truth and integrity that that you probably was reinforced through your Mormon experience that led you to keep uh, learning.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to know the truth, just the truth. If it’s the church that’s true, I want to know that. If it’s the church is not true, I want to know that. Either way, I want to know. Okay. And that feels very courageous to me, but there’s a next step. Yeah, it’s one thing to decide internally that that this isn’t necessarily what it claims to be and that maybe you’re not able to internally believe it, but there’s a whole another step, and for you it was a lot of steps because you weren’t just the aver—average ward member, right? You had been a bishop; you had been a stake president; you had had your calling and election made sure, and you had this incredible family, this incredible family experience, this church that you love, this experience that you loved, and then all these—this wife and these children that all believed it, and it was going to become incredibly disruptive to them and very risky for you because you could lose your wife, you could lose your children, you could lose the love and respect of so many people. How do you how do you make the decision to risk all that and actually in in, you know, speak publicly versus just let this die with you as a secret that you go to your grave knowing but just deciding to let others have their beliefs?

Okay, first of all, I did think that I would lose friends and family over it. I honestly thought, once sharing things—truth with people—that they would discuss that and either convince me that I’d gone down the wrong track and correct me, which case we’re back to normal; that’s no problem for me. In fact, that’s what I wanted. Oh, I would I would love for someone to show me that I was wrong; love that. That’s my number one wish. However, if I’m even now—even now—oh, even now—yeah, even now, if that were possible—yes. Why? But but certainly then why? Because I’d spent my whole life doing that. Why would I not—why would I want to say, “Hang on, what’s my life been about?” Why would I want to do that? As you say—no, no, no, no, no. I would rather it was true, because you know what, it was comfort. You know, everything was going fine with it true. I didn’t want it to be not true, right? And I certainly didn’t know I would have this kind of opposition in coming out in just wanting to discuss the truth and the refusal to discuss the truth. I didn’t expect that for one minute. So your commitment to truth made you feel like there was nothing to fear. That either—I thought other people would would also share that truth. I didn’t I didn’t see why uh, you—why—okay, I don’t subscribe to the view that there are all sorts of different truths and different realities. I guess I I know to an extent there is, and there’s different perceptions; I can get that. But there are also certain things—I keep using the experience of the light switch, you know. I can switch on a light here, and the light bulb goes on, and it does it every time. If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with the bulb or the wiring or the power or, you know, there’s something wrong that we can fix, and then it will go on again. It happens every time. So that to me is true, you know. If someone wants to try and come up with, “Well, it’s only in my imagination; this is true,” or “I’m dreaming this life, and one day I’ll wake up,” I’m not even going down those sort of philosophical uh, Realms right now. That to me is true—putting on a light switch. Now, some of these things like um um cave drawings or skulls, you know, skeletons that are one and a half million years old, uh, these are light switch type items; they’re not something someone’s dreamt up or fabricated; that happened, right? So I can’t dismiss that. Now, I’m not giving—I don’t want to give myself too much credit—but now because I’ve often thought—now, if I knew the way things would turn out, would I have kept quiet and just persevered, as you say, go to your grave happy, everything else? Again, I can’t do that, because you know what, I would say, “I wish if my grandfather knew something and didn’t say it and went to his grave without saying it, and I spent my whole life on something which I eventually found out was not true, I wouldn’t be too happy with that grandfather.” I owe it even if to my children and grandchildren or whoever comes after them to speak out and say, “Hey, have a look at this,” and all I’m asking you to do—I’m not even asking you to not be more—or not—or disbelieve or anything; I’m just saying, “Hey, these are—” And there’s a whole load of serious issues that the apologists do not answer; the Brethren will not answer. So we’ve got to then face up to those issues, and how do we balance that with what is true and what is not? And that’s all I’m asking for is that kind of discussion. Uh, the church, as as President Hinckley said, he rested all on the First Vision, and the others have rested on the Book of Mormon; they’re the two.

Founding principles of the church: if either one of those is false, that's it; it throws the church out. Now it's very hard. I know there's different accounts of the first Vision. You can argue that till the cows come home. I'm not even going to go there, um, because that's not an, an a light switch type thing that you can go to and demonstrate. But the Book of Mormon is, and Elder Holland has put himself out there as the main, uh, champion of that book being exactly what Joseph Smith said it was and being the word of God.

What about people who say the Book of Mormon is too amazing of a book to have been invented, that nobody has come up with a plausible theory for how it got created in 90 days or 120 days, or however many days it is that it's supposed to have been written, and most importantly, that the spiritual truths that one experiences through reading it are testimony alone? What would you say to those arguments about the Book of Mormon?

Okay, first of all, I'll refer him to the Quran. And if the Quran is true, and it would be true under all of those principles that you just outlined, um, that denies that Jesus was the Christ or the Son of God, um, I'd also say, because the Quran, because the Quran is an amazing document, and because it was written in a short amount of time, and because people, short amount of time and in better language—if you read it in the original Persian, apparently it's a beautiful poetic language. Okay, a lot of our scriptures come from the King James version. Now that is a poetic language; it's not the original Hebrew, the original Hebrew didn't say that, or even the original Greek, but the King James version has actually made it sound more from a work of literature; it's better than it was, right, uh, you, and let's face it, the Book of Mormon has a lot of either straight from the King James version or whoever the author is is influenced by the King James version and using some similar language and and syntax.

Um, in terms of inspiration, I, I've got tremendous inspiration out of people like Marcus Aurelius, who, you know, a Roman Emperor, and and some of his writings, and some of his were put down in the battlefield in between battles. He wrote things far more inspirational than than probably there are in the Book of Mormon, so, and you can recount lots and lots of books like that. Um, so do you, do you have a theory for how the Book of Mormon was created then?

I don't even have to have a theory. I know of various theories, um, and even that was it, the one done by the, uh, uh, the guys at Stanford University where they, they feel there's multiple authorship there with, um, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, um, some of Ethan Smith, and maybe some of Solomon Spalding. Um, I don't know, and I don't even, I don't even have to worry about who did, why not? Why, why isn't the burden of proof on you to prove that it's a fraud?

I don't. Well, first of all, if you want an answer to Elder Holland, there are a number of scenarios, every one of them as credible or more credible than the one he put forward. He's the one that has the burden of proof. He tells me is, is from the word he said an angel came and showed Joseph Smith some gold plates that were written in reformed Egyptian. We haven't got the plates, by the way, but this is what happened, and Joseph Smith wrote this down. First of all, we have all these pictures with him with gold plates, then we find out from Elder Nelson, no, he looked at a rock, the same rock that he used for trying to find buried treasure, and all sorts of things come out of this thing. Now, somehow Elder Holland would have me believe that that is more credible than the fact that some 19th-century people, whoever they are, whether it's one author, Joseph Smith, or multiple authors, got together and made a, if you like, an American Bible; that is much more credible. I don't have to prove who did that. What I've got to, all I have to do in my mind is that book is supposed to be the word of God. Now, if I understand the God who is the great scientist, if you like, the the omniscient, the all-powerful, if he has inspired, written, or inspired a book, the things contained in that book would be true. Now I'm not talking about spiritual matters and subjective matters, or good moral, moral teachings, cuz you know what Mark Twain was good at that with his writings as well, right, and he, he wasn't a religious person. I'm saying there's other people, a lot of people get things out of the Harry Potter, and even I think the recent Twilight series, there's all sorts of people get a lot of inspiration from books; doesn't make them true, and and their authors say they're not true. Um, so if it's true, then what's contained in it would be true. Now, if there are untruths in there, and I say there are a number of untruths, we haven't even touched upon on the the archaeology, but there's lots of untruths in there that can't be from God; that's all I'm saying.

Now, if Elder Holland, you say otherwise, show me, prove to me. Elder Holland has been in Britain and other countries; he's seen Roman villas. Roman, we still use Roman baths; there's a city called Bath in England. You can go in there; you can go in and drink and put immerse yourself in actual Roman BS that 100, you know, 16, 1800 years old. We've got them. The Romans were in Britain from about 50 AD to 400 AD. The Nephites supposedly were 600 BC to 400 AD, and their golden age was from presumably 33 AD until 200; they had 200 years of golden age after after Christ visited them, right? It was peace throughout the land, and they, peace and prosperity. There is not, not only is there no evidence of that, all of the evidence says the opposite, right? It's everything says, no, that didn't happen. And if you want to liken the Mayans, they offered up children as sacrifices and things like that. If you want to talk about the population, you know, America was populated roughly 15 to 30,000 years ago by people from Asia via the Bering Straits. I go along with that theory, or what the anthropologists say, because it's even been borne out with with DNA, and they found this Clovis people 13, 15,000 years ago in Texas. These things we can see; they're there. None of that's in the book; nothing in the Book of Mormon.

You, I asked, actually, I asked a missionary one time, give me one quote from The Book of Mormon that you can show is actually true, demonstrate that it's true, a statement, a fact that is true, like a city or a mountain or a river. I'm not even talking about a city because they name cities after you; there's a Bountiful in Utah, isn't you know, there's Euphrates all over the world; there's, I mean, New York, we, that's named after York in England. I mean, names mean nothing. I mean, you can even come up with that, and and let's face it, a lot of those names can be made up. I, I don't even see where we're going on that, on that, that AR, that's why I say with apologetics, it seems to me the side-stepping the issue and saying, oh, well, who wrote it? I don't have to say who wrote it; you know, it's not for me to say. I think Joseph Smith had a part in it; there's no question about that. Is he capable? Emma says he's not; other people say he is. I used to think he was, cuz whenever I wrote, whenever I read anything by Joseph Smith, it was brilliant. I only found out later on it was rewritten by other people; he was fairly illiterate, had poor grammar and poor spelling. Okay, did Sidney Rigdon come in with the theological arguments? Was Oliver Cowdery more involved in that? I don't know that, but there, there are probabilities there. All I know for a fact, I, I do know for a in fact, when you look at the Book of Mormon and you take all of the teachings out of it, and especially the erroneous teachings, the anti-Catholic, uh, the, the, the anti-Masonic, all of those kind of things, they're all 19th-century America, right? Answer that, Elder Holland; these aren't ancient writings; they didn't write that way anciently. And even I take Isaiah, apparently, now I don't know how true this is, and I don't even have to answer the question, but from what I understand, the book, book of Isaiah was written by about two or three people, and it was more like, it was certainly after 600 BC; it wasn't even there in 600 BC when they supposedly took the brass plates with them in our, in our, we haven't covered this in our listening, aoip, so, so this is my understanding as well, that that again, Lehi was supposed to have taken the brass plates with him that would have contained, um, the book of Isaiah, right, to the new world, and that's where they would have gotten the source from to quote Isaiah in Second Nephi. Well, it turns out that scholars now believe that Isaiah was written after Lehi left Jerusalem, correct, back in the old world, so there's no way that Lehi could have brought Isaiah, or at least several of the chapters of Isaiah, to the new world, so he would have had to, like Joseph in the book of Abraham, somehow channeled, um, Isaiah, you know, before it was ever written, or, you know, contemporarily or after it was written, but without the actual source text, and so how can it contain the actual, um, errors that the King James Bible would purport, you got, and and still be channeling, you know, and still have that source text, so it's, it's problematic, right?

I don't think it's problematic. I think all these things are death nails, you know, to, to say they're problematic. No, no, no, no, no, no, this is pretty obviously 19th-century writing. Let's, we're going to come back to your, your correspondence with Elder Holland, but tell me, tell me what the process was for you coming out, like, did you start with your wife?

Yeah, what I did, uh, in May 2004. Well, first, was, was there a moment where you just said to yourself, I, I'm not sure the church is what it claims to be? Did you have like a moment, like, I, I can think of a moment in time where I said, oh my gosh, I'm not sure the church is what it claims to be. Did you have a moment like that?

I think so, when I got that response from the Smithsonian. I think that was, that was, that was that, that you know, I'd been clutching at straws then to find someone that would just give me the 1% chance. Yeah, they, they closed the door on me. Now, but even after I got that, um, because actually my stake president called me in for a calling, they want, while I was waiting around, they wanted to call me to the High Council, and I actually said to him at the time, look, I'd love to serve, you know, I, I love serving on the High Council, no question about it. I said, but to be honest, any course, I'm, I'm not now in a situation where I'm going to go out and reactivate or convert or or anything, cuz I'm having these, these issues, and I explained some of them to him, uh, he did listen to me for a couple of hours, but he just said, no, I believe the Book of Mormon is true, and and the scientists have got it all wrong, and that end of conversation, and and he kept the calling open for me for about 3 months, and I said, look, no, um, at the time I would have loved to have talked to my wife, but she saw the, the, the email that I wrote to the Smithsonian, and she just, she just flipped. She said, what's the meaning of this, you know, and, uh, tore me off a strip for even asking the question. So, although I would have loved to have studied this with someone else, I wasn't, I just didn't have that opportunity. And what I was hoping by studying it myself is I would then find out the flaws with all of these, uh, arguments and get back to, that's it. Okay, so I've made the journey. To me, it was worth investing a few months just to even prove the church, because then I'd be even, you know, I felt was strong anyway, but that's, uh, made again 110% sure that it's true. Um, so it was a lonely journey, um, and there wasn't anyone, I say a stake president was aware of it, but, uh, he didn't really take any interest in it, and you, and and when you, when, when your wife found out you were just studying the stuff, she got really mad at you.

Why? Okay, so when did, did you go from gently denying callings and having private meetings with your stake president and realizing that you couldn't talk to your wife, how did you progress to kind of coming out of the closet?

That was in May 2004, when I met with my wife and my children, or three of my children, one was back in the UK, so I met with her separately, and, um, I just called them together, and, uh, said, in fact, we were all in Arizona at the time, and my wife and I were two days later were had tickets to come back to England, but I just told them before I left that, um, I just apologized to them. I said, look, I, I made an error of judgment back in 1969, but I don't think it's harmed us as a family, um, I think we've actually benefited, and then I told them, you know, I found out some things that now I know no longer believe the church is true. I think I made an error in believing that it was true. Um, and you told, and was this like blindsiding your wife and your kids all at the same time, or had you told her you were going to be doing this?

No, no, I told, she knew there was something up, and I just said, it's of eternal significance. She didn't want to discuss it; there was no way I could do it one-on-one, um, and in fact, she, to be honest, she instigated the meeting, so it was, it was said before I go back, cuz she, she was anxious to know what it was, but she wasn't also anxious to listen to it, so the best way I saw was the three, the three children that were there, plus, uh, my wife, wife, I told them like that, and I guess expecting them to say, well, what are the issues, and or something like that, and let's sort of discuss these things as a family, uh, but I got a very, very violent, an opposite, an unexpected response.

Okay, so all your family's around, you're telling your wife and your kids all at the same time, and, and the response was what? One daughter fainted. How, how old were your children? How old were your children at the time? 2004?

Seven, eight. The youngest was 26. The youngest was 26. So these were all, they were all married in the temple by this point.

They're all married in the temple, yeah, and they all have, and they're starting to have children.

Yep. Okay, and one daughter faints. She fainted. Did she like hit her head, or no? Just collapsed on the, or went down on the floor. My son immediately, uh, went to her and looked up at me and said, you better get out now, Dad, before any, quoted her husband's name, gets home.

What? Yeah, apparent, you know, he said, get out before her husband comes home, get out of the house, get out of the house. Why? Well, because he's probably going to punch my head in or something for just telling your truth or experience.

Exactly. Okay. Um, another daughter that was there, and typical of her, and not, she's just a sweet person, person who was just absolutely silent; she didn't say anything at all. Um, so I got that kind of response, um, I did as instructed, left the home and just wait. Did someone scream? Your wife?

She screamed at me. I'm sorry, no, no, go ahead. I'm trying to recall now just what my, I mean, obviously what's ringing through my ears is the, the words from my son saying, get out before so-and-so gets home, and this is a son you had a good relationship with, or most people thought he was a clone. We looked alike, talked alike, thought alike.

Yeah. Okay. Um, in fact, you know, even, uh, de hilum said, when you put him in a stake president, he, you know, he said, you know, he's your son, you know, what else would you, you know, I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve it himself, but, uh, you know, the Brethren's eyes were open to him because he was my son. So, uh, and you felt like you had a good relationship with these kids?

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And so you were, were you worried, were you, were you, were you scared or worried about what would happen if you told them?

I was worried. Well, no, because I assumed, because I'm so close with them, that we would have a family, this is a, what do we talk, we have family council, we talk about these things, right? And let's discuss them, you know, they've grown up where you every Sunday at the dinner table as, as a minimum, it's open discussion for anyone can bring up any subject; we talk about it as a family, right? That family home evening, that's family councils; that's what that was all about. I thought that's what we had. So this was a complete, this blind, no one got blindsided, I don't think, then, but me, I'm the one that, uh, was gobsmacked by what, by the reaction. Um, then later on, and by the way, that husband didn't come home and punch me in the face or anything; he just, uh, smiled at me and said, you've opened a can of worms now, haven't you? And that's all he ever, that's, that's he's never said anything since to me about it.

Okay, so you, you left, you left the house by yourself?

No, I went out with my other daughter as well; we were just walking in the nearby park, um, and then when the husband came home, he came, obviously the first concern was about the daughter, the daughter that collapsed, because to make sure she was all right, I mean, I went outside to let them, the mother and and and my son to, uh, see what, what was wrong, and if necessary, obviously call an ambulance if there was a, but there wasn't a serious problem; it was purely emotional, um, and she was over it within minutes, um, it wasn't, okay, there was nothing serious there, but, uh, you know, obviously I worried about until I heard she was all right. I'm, I'm worried, I'm the father that whose daughter's just, you know, collapsed, so, so I'm outside, and then gradually they join us, and as I say, the, the two husbands come from from my two daughters, um, hardly saying anything to me, and, uh, then I heard my son say to one of the, uh, one of the, the, the sons-in-law, oh, I know what his issues are, but they don't worry; they're nothing, right? They're nothing.

Yeah, they're nothing. Um, that I take as a reference because I was quite open that he, he, he, he looked at some files on my computer at the time, and I had a file marked issues, which were these kind of things, right? So he says, I know what his issues are, and they are nothing. Yeah, that was his comment. Um, then as I say, the next night when we were preparing to go back to England, um, my wife was dutifully reading her Book of Mormon, and okay, I may have made a mistake in saying that, uh, why is she reading a book of fiction? And she immediately, uh, told me that's it; she's not coming back with me, um, and, uh, you know, told me off. So I'm, I'm admitting I wasn't the wisest person to make that comment, but, uh, as as no one had bothered to discuss anything with me, uh, so that's the kind of reaction I got. I came back on my own then from America, saw my other daughter, uh, sat down with her for an hour and a half, two hours again to tell her the issue; she was very, seemed very kind and didn't respond to anything but just everything was all right. Um, then later on that day when we were on the phone, she then said to me, Dad, I just found it highly offensive all the things that you said, and all I had done was, uh, I guess like in my letter to Elder Holland, I'd quoted scripture, what the Brethren had said about this or that, and what, uh, science or history says about those things; that's all I'd said. Um, so that was the reaction, uh.

From my family, so how has it played out since then? Tragic. Uh, I assumed then, okay, like anyone else would say, "Well, hang on, give them a few months." I mean, it took me—let's face it—I can talk to myself and say, "Look, this has taken me months to get here, give them time," but we've got to do it, you know. But we've got to have discussion to have that time. There was no discussion, and all it was always refusal, um, just same as Elder Holland's response.

Um, my wife even said to me at one time, "It would have been better for her if I had died rather than lose the faith." Now that I found is a very hurtful statement, also coupled with statements like, "Satan has got you." "He's not going to get me," and things like that. Now, she's a sweet person, she's very kind, and you know, thousands of people could get up in a court of law and say what a wonderful person she is. All I'm saying is they were the things said to me from a wife that we've had the second anointing together, we're, you know, we're married in the temple for eternity and everything else. Instead of, "Tom, what are these issues? Can we discuss them?" All I ever want to do is discuss them together, not uh, be told I'm—I'm—Satan's got me, and she'd rather that I died.

Were you—this is going to sound stereotypical—were you committing adultery? Were you—no, no. Did you have a pornography problem? You know, were you secretly drinking or smoking? No, no, no. Nothing, nothing at all. Nothing at all. Were you reading your scriptures and praying? Oh, and you know, during that few months I was not only praying, I was fasting specifically, and at one—I—I spent at least two of the monthly fasts on the—just on the Book of Abraham. Just on the Book of Abraham. I fasted to know that—that was—whether that was true.

So your righteousness actually increased, your—your outward manifestations of righteousness increased? Yeah, by and—until—well, yeah. What was—again, when you say righteousness, I'm still as righteous as I've ever been, you know. There's this definition now, the Mormon definition of righteousness may—may be somewhat different to mine now, right? Because actually I value honesty and integrity and uh, other things I—and I can then get upset about uh, you know, things like Joseph Smith, um, you know, def—well, whatever he did with a 14-year-old girl and things like that, and whatever promises he made to her, you know, and all sorts of things you can get into. You know, what I don't do those things at all. Um, so I—I feel I'm as righteous as any uh, church member I know. Now, if you want—do I ever take alcohol? Yes, I do. Does that make me unrighteous? No, it doesn't. Do I drink coffee? Yes, I do. Does that make me unrighteous? No, it doesn't. But at the time—at the time you were—the time I was doing nothing like that. You were not doing—in fact, even after—may—I still went out to church every week for another eight months—no, seven months, right? And mainly I was sitting in church, and mainly for the sake of my children because they were in the—my grandchildren in the same ward. But again, and—and I was in there, and even the stake president was aware. I would make comments in Sunday school, but they were all strict comments that were—in fact, they were supporting the teacher. If there was something being taught that I didn't agree with, I just wouldn't even comment. But anything that I could latch on to and make a positive comment, I did.

But do you know what? After seven months of that, I said, "I've had enough of this, you know. I'm hearing such garbage being taught. I'm not doing this anymore." Um, and so I stopped going. And even then, although my wife would go out to church, when she came back she saw me dressed in my Sunday best: a white shirt, a tie, yeah, dress trousers, you know, no TV, nothing. Um, I respected her idea of a Sabbath day, so I did a lot of things like that for another couple of years or so. Um, it wasn't just an instant, "Oh, I'm—" and certainly it wasn't that I wanted to sin or—or anything like that. They're the rumors that people put about, but they're not true.

Um, did you ever—so did you ever have that a—after talking to your family, did you ever try and talk to your stake president or, you know, did you ever have anyone from the church reach out to try and help you? I had uh, a meeting—I—I met with Elder Helm, and then his successor was Elder Lund. Elder Lund came to my house on two occasions. Uh, in the meantime, I also had a visit from the bishop that my wife arranged, that she thought he could come and sort me out. And what types—how—how were those conversations? Well, the one with Elder Hilum, I told you what he said about the death before 6,000 years. He knew nothing about the um, uh, Book of Abraham and knew nothing about DNA and the Lamanites. So it was only that one thing he didn't know—he didn't know the—he didn't know the issues. Well, he said he didn't know the issues. Um, and then what he said to me is, "Tom, it's not worth losing your—your family over," right? Uh, so that was the meeting with Elder Hilum. Um, later on then, the Bish—the wife got the bishop to come around to sort me out. So I then—um—again, just on the one issue of the death before 6,000 years, he said he didn't read the scripture that way. Uh, this man at one time had been the area director of CES for the uh, you know, for our area. He—he's had a lifetime career in CES, and he says he doesn't—well, I was dumbfounded at that answer because I then went and dug out some uh, Institute and Seminary manuals that all taught what—what I understood the doctrine to be. So I concluded from that he was either mistaken, which is kind of hard in his position, or he was lying to me.

I then was visited by Elder Lund and the same bishop. Elder Lund did not know me too well; he didn't know me like Elder Hill or Elder Holland knew me. So he, first of all, came in with a load of dismissive comments to—to get rid of my issues, and then realized they weren't going by—he actually admitted that he was a wordsmith. Um, he then, after two hours, agreed—he then came back—he said with some answers uh, sometime later for another two hours. Uh, he categorically said that the doctrine of the church—and this is as—and he said this in his position as area president—the doctrine of the church is very—because first of all he said, "Well, what is the doctrine of the church?" He gave me all those sort of things uh, 'cause he didn't know me that well, as if the doctrine of the church—you—it may be this, it may be that. But on his second visit, he said categorically, "The doctrine of the church is there was no death of any kind on this planet prior to 6,000 years ago, and the scientists are wrong." Um, he then left me a paper written by Doctor so-and-so about carbon dating, which I agreed to read. On the Book of Abraham, he trotted out the usual thing about this—another 15 rolls of parchment, etc., etc. That was the answer on that one. And the Lamanites, it was just a question of, "Oh, what is a Lamanite?" He said, "Um, I tell people I'm from Salt Lake City. In fact, I'm from Bountiful, but they wouldn't understand what Bountiful was, so I just s—from Salt Lake," and brushed it off in that kind of way. But the main issue—the one about before, you know, death before 6,000 years—he was quite categoric um, that that was the doctrine of the church and it's—and so again, that's a final decision to me. If—if that's the doctrine of the church, and then I'll—I'll go with the scientists on that one and say, "No, you're wrong."

The paper he left me, I did read, because it said Dr. Sumon—it did have a title at the beginning. It was Doctor—I—I assumed it was some kind of um, physicist or whatever, and I read the paper. I then found out—I went back—he was actually a medical doctor, and he was um, one of the—he's a Christian who's a—you know, what is it?—young Earth scientist type person. Uh, anyway, the main conclusion of his um, um, paper on carbon dating is that it's not that accurate. If it says 50,000 years old, it may only be 45,000 years old. So I don't know that even Elder Lund had read that paper, 'cause it didn't help the argument at all. In fact, it—it cemented it really. So now is—is this Gerald L., the au—author of the work—Work and the Glory books? That's right. Who said he spent 10 years researching church history? His father was into church history, all sorts of thing—that's why he had all these answers for me—that's why he could res—did you get into polygamy and all that with him? No, didn't even bother—I didn't even—didn't even go there. I mean, we'd had two—two meetings of two hours just basically on these three issues. I didn't get to polygamy or anything there. Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham—what—well, the book of the—the death before—the only thing on the Book of Mormon I—I mentioned was the—well, two things: the book of uh, the death before 6,000 years and the Lamanites—the Lamanite situation, right, being, you know, whatever we say—the progenitors of the American Indian or whatever you want to call it. Uh, now saying they're one of the—or the principal ancestors—we used to say—of the American Indians. Now they're one of the ancestors or whatever it's been changed to—that—and the Book of Abraham. There were the only three issues on the table. Okay, okay. To go any further, I mean, fine. If those had been answered—yes, that's a different matter then—do I just—then close it, or do we then go on to the others? I don't know, 'cause we never got that far. The—the three issues I've had uh, so far have never been answered by any general authority, any BYU professor, and from whatever I've written—I've read of apologetics—I can't find any credible answer there, right? Other than changing the doctrine—that is, oh no, the church has always been in favor of evolution, and then you get back into the arguments between Elder Talmage and uh, President Smith at the uh, beginning of the 20th century, where you—the first presid—statement categorically declared one thing, and—and Elder Talmage and I think Elder Roberts were of the opinion though that's not really true because, you know, what geologists uh, say this, right?

Okay, so did they threaten to excommunicate you, or do they tell you not to talk about things like—how did you leave it with these people? They're like—they've got to be nervous that a former stake president—and I'm assuming that they knew you had gotten your calling—election made sure—at least maybe Elder Lund had—did you get a sense that they were nervous? Well, he was—as I say, he uh, Elder Lund is one of these guys that uh, he's almost—he blends into the background. He's not the charismatic normal General Authority, and uh, I can see why he just sits there writing books rather than being up front. He's not like the others who, you know, but um, he came across in almost a bullying type way, which was quite unusual [Music]. Um, I thought at the time for him because it didn't seem to be his character, but um, nevertheless, it was almost that threat: "Look, I can believe what I want, um, but just don't say or publish it," and in that—in which case they would excommunicate me. That they were his words—that's what he said. Yeah, that's been many years ago, and he's been replaced probably two times since then. Uh, the last communication I had—because that area was then changed so that the headquarters were in Frankfurt—and living here in Malta, I did get a message through from some missionaries here that the area president wanted to speak to me from Frankfurt. Um, I don't know why he didn't just contact me, because it's very easy to get that information off my family. They're not going to withhold it, especially if an area president wants to contact me. Um, uh, so then uh, I then communicated with the mission president in Italy, who comes over to Malta every six weeks and was very anxious—wanted to come and meet with me and help me in any way he could, etc.—and I just wrote—I just told him, "Well, give this to—I can't even remember now the name of the area president at the time, but you know, if he wants to contact me, you know, you've got my email. Just tell me what it is you want to contact me about," um, "or phone me. I'm not going to phone him in Frankfurt. What—what am I going to do that for?" I've been through two area presidents. So you didn't—you didn't talk to him? I never talked to him, and he never came back to me—didn't come up to—I said, "Anything you want to do, even if you just say—" I mean, like you did—and this—this kind of thing you outlined what it was you wanted to talk to me about—"Fine. I—I can greet that, and we can have a conversation on the—on the—on the phone about it. That's no problem for me," but just a message to contact him. What about—right. So what happened with your—with your marriage and your children? Let me just say—I was going to say about him, and this applies to everything with the—the whole thing. I spent my life in the church; one of the principles I was teaching was going after the lost sheep. We even had at one time in the UK a lost sheep program. I don't feel anyone in the church has come after this lost sheep. The attitude I've had is really summed up by Elder Holland. I have raised—I—what I think—a genuine issues of concern. My son has said to someone else, "They're of no consequence whatsoever. Never address them with me," well, except on one occasion he addressed some of them. Um, others in my family have refused, and just like Elder Holland, they refuse to discuss any of the issues and instead say nasty things about you. And when you look at that Elder Holland letter, he's expressing his love and admiration for me, but at the same time—time—there are insinuations in there which—even if they're not apparent to outside people—he and I know exactly what he means, right? So—so we'll get to that for sure, right? But—but you're saying that a few people have been willing to spend a few hours with you. What—what more would you want them to do? I mean, you've had a couple area presidents you've talked to—you've talked to a bishop. What would you—what—what would—what would like—I'm in—I'm in conversations right with my stake president about some of these things, and I—you know, he wants to help me, and I—I don't know exactly what to say—like what—what type of help could they offer? Well, I just—I guess reverse it the other way. Supposing—and I've said this to each of my family—if my wife or one of my children had ever said to me they didn't think the church was true and they had some serious issues about it, I would at that moment drop everything. I would spend whatever time it was with them on their issues, and I would feel confident that I would resolve their issues by explaining to them where they've gone wrong. If, however, I couldn't do that, I would join them. Now, again, as a stake president, I already dealt with apostates. What did I do? I didn't just invite them to a two-hour meeting and lecture them. I spent six months, and I looked at the material they were on about to try and see what was going on here—where they might be wrong. I didn't just categorically say—now, remember, I've had two general authorities—you say, okay, I had two general authorities; they both gave me opposite answers. One tells me there's been death on this planet for billions of years; the other one tells me it's church doctrine that that wasn't so, and the scientists are wrong. Now, which area president am I supposed to believe on that one? You know, no one came kindly and lovingly and say, "Yes, look, hang on. I'll give—" Elder Hales—you—one time again I was in—I think Arizona, and it was round about conference time—he was over—October conference—and he phoned me and said he just met with some people at BYU, and he mentioned the name of a dean. Now, I don't know if it was dean of BYU or dean of religious studies; I—I'm not sure what it was, and I—I can't recall the exact name, but he said he will put the—the resources of—of BYU to you to resolve your issues. And as an example, he sent me a paper from Michael Rhodes. Well, read that paper, and I thought, "If this is the kind of help they're—they're offering, I don't need it," because it's just a bunch of—well, I'm talking about a paper that says, "Yes, this is not what it says it is. Um, Joseph Smith didn't translate it, but maybe the word 'translate' means something else. Um, therefore, maybe it was a catalyst for him to get the original document," blah, blah, blah. Okay, look into the Book of Abraham. In the Book of Abraham is the only place I think we have in LDS scripture—not the Bible—about the curse of Cain. Look at the Book of Abraham and tell me how Egypt was discovered. Apparently it was after the flood when there was dry land there—Egyptus—one of her sons became the first Pharaoh of Egypt. Now, John, you go along—I don't know about BYU, but any other university and find their experts on Egyptology; they'll say, "Nonsense. There were pharaohs before this supposed flood of 4 1/2 thousand years ago. And by the way, if there were such a flood, how come we've got the pyramids still today that predate that uh, and all sorts of things." So you can't have it that—you know—what—what was I faced with? My so-called answers are the plain and precious truths of the Gospel. I understood the Book of Mormon was for our day and age. The Doctrine and Covenants certainly—it wasn't written in some ancient language that we don't understand or don't comprehend anymore. It was today's language, and now suddenly death doesn't mean death, translate doesn't mean translate, and Lamanite doesn't mean Lamanite, and steel doesn't mean steel, and horse doesn't mean horse, and oh yeah, okay, John, you're—well, you're ahead of me there, but all of that—yeah, yeah, yeah—all a—all of a—all of a sudden words become meaningless. Waste my time discussing those things with those people. If words can mean—if words can mean anything, then they really don't mean anything, right? Yeah, and I'm—I'm not sure what kind of a God we're worshipping that—that gives us that kind of confusion, because it was supposed to be simple to understand and act. But see—but—but so in effect, the original question was, "What do you expect people to do to reach out to the—to the lost sheep?" What you're really saying is either study this stuff and conclude that it's—they conclude that it's false like I have, or—or prove to me that it's—that it's true. I'm not—I'm not even talking about proof here, John. I'm—I'm—I'm reversing those two orders as well. I'm saying going after the lost sheep is—you go after the one that supposedly lost—um—you find them—you find out—first of all, I used to go out after people and first of all find out, "Why aren't you going to church? What is your issue?" Now, let's address this issue—not—"Oh, so they're your issues? Oh, don't worry about those, or you're a bad person for asking them." But yeah—how could they—how could they possibly address these issues? How could anybody—what type of answer could they give you that would satisfy you now? Yeah, it's hard to imagine. Now, at the time—well, sorry, I want to say—no, at any time—any credible answer. Okay, as far as death before—the answer to that would have to be, "You know what? That was wrong in the book of—and—and Joseph Smith got something wrong when he was translating it. He shouldn't—it shouldn't have said that." Okay, maybe is an explanation—I—me—obviously it casts doubt on what it—I mean, it's the same thing now that they're saying about when a pro—about quoting

A prophet, well, was he speaking as a prophet? Was he speaking as a man? Well, when do I know this? You know, I've grown up, and when I joined the church, it was um, David O McKay just before he died. How many prophets have I been through? Now we're disagreeing—that we certainly disagree with Joseph Fielding Smith because all of Mormon Doctrine was based on Joseph Fielding Smith, right? It wasn't Bruce R McConkie. Okay, he was quoting what Joseph Fielding Smith said all the time, right?

That's right. Apparently, that's all—most of that is untrue now, according to, and and some President McKay and others thought it was untrue at the time. So who is it that I'm supposed to listen to? President Benson? Um, President Hunter? President Hinckley? President Hinckley—one, I've got quotes from him where he says the Lamanites are all of the North American Indians. Now I'm pretty sure if he were ever asked that question—if he had been asked that question on Larry King or 60 Minutes—he would have denied that. You know, where do we go from here? You know, I, I, I've got this second anointing, the whole thing about the church. One of my favorite sections was Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, and then they shall be Gods. This is wonderful. This is a gospel where us mere mortals, if we live in the right way and do all the things expected of us, eventually become like our Heavenly Father, and as Gods. Then President Hinckley says, "I don't know. I don't know that we teach that." He knows perfectly well because he then spoke at a priesthood meeting after he said, "Of course I know the doctrine of the church." Now what's going on here? Why does a prophet of God tell lies? Well, or misinform people, or what? I don't know what you want to call it. To me, a lie is something that isn't true. Now I realize there's two types of that. You could say—I could say something to you right now that's untrue, but I did it in—I thought it was true. You know, I, I—what I did, I made a mistake, um, and I can be corrected on that. On the other hand, if I know something is definitely false and I say it, that's a lie, and I'm sorry. I'll call Elder Holland a liar. I had great respect for him, but you know—now, okay, before we get to that, we are going to get to that, so um, well, basically what you're saying is that the only way that they could reach out to you as the one is to disbelieve their beliefs because that, that, that's that's the—that's the rub—that's the—the. Don't expect them to do anything. All I'm saying is when, when I mention the lost sheep, I'm saying that gets preached all the time in the church, and I was a leader that preached that as well. Certainly, when it came to my case and certain other people I know, that's rubbish. There is no going after the lost sheep, and you know why? I think part of the message is—and I think my family were given that—I don't know this for sure, so I could be, if you like, in my words, lying. Now I don't know. I suspect that Elder Hill, or whoever it was at the time, contacted my family and just said, "Don't even—just stay away because you'll get polluted." I've had it actually referred to in that way by someone recently. I'm not going that route because I don't want to get polluted by it—an i.e., by inference, end up like you. That was said to me by one of my family just recently when I asked them just to look at the issues, take some time, and then come back to me. No, I'm not even going to go there. So, um, that's not going after the lost sheep, sorry John, that's not doing it right. So tell me what happened with your, with your wife, with your marriage, and with your children.

I don't know. Um, well, no, I mean, are you, are you married? Are you still married? I have been separated for six years from my wife. I live in Malta; she lives in the UK. Whether—was that, was that over—was that her idea? Was that yours? Uh, it was both at different times. There were—I mean, during—see, from 2004 to 2006, that's two years I spent trying to make these things work, um, often being—and and most of the time it worked perfectly, but whenever something came up—I'll tell you what happened one time—just—it was unfortunate—I just give you an example. My wife and I had had a wonderful weekend away together, and we were back at home, and she was just preparing some meal, and I was watching the news on the TV. Again, I made the mistake that it came on about Warren Jeffs being on the most wanted list at the time. That was—so this is a number of years ago, and I happen to comment, "Well, look, Warren Jeffs is on the news; he claims he's only doing what Joseph Smith did." Now my wife's immediate reaction to that is, "Get out. No discussion. Just get out." Now, okay. There's other times—ultimately, I've chosen to, to stay—well, I, I've tried. I've gone back on various occasions, but as long as I tow the line, say nothing, and accept all the garbage that goes on, live in a home with the temple and Joseph Smith and everything else all around us, that's okay, and have all of our Mormon friends in, saying whatever they are and talking about their sons on missions or the children going to EFY or whatever's going on or the Youth Camp, that's okay, but I never can have someone in my home that's not of the, you know, that I could discuss openly some politics or, or whatever with. I found that unbearable. Now, no doubt my wife could say she finds life with me, you know, whatever, but the only issue is the church. Um, that is the only issue in that we had in her marriage, um, and the fact that she refuses to discuss anything and treats me on occasions as if I am the lowest of the low, uh, because I don't have the faith that she has.

How does it feel to have the church separate you from your wife? Well, let's put it this way: if at the time my wife had come with me, I'd probably have done nothing more about the church. Her and I would have just lived out our lives in retirement happily together. But having separated me from them, I'm actually now—you see, I was never offended. I didn't leave the church 'cause I was offended by anyone. I've now been offended. Elder Holland has offended me. A number of people offended me. They didn't offend me when I was a member of the church, but since I've left, they've offended me, and they've offended me publicly, right? Uh, he has—when I'm saying I may take this personally—he's addressed me and and thousands of other people in his 2009 talk, saying we are foolish and misled. Well, I just answered—I said to him, "Well, in what way am I foolish, and who has misled me?" No answer. Why am I foolish and misled? That's a defamation of my character, let alone anything else that's said about crawling over and under and all the rest of it. So, so you've never had this heart-to-heart with your wife where you said, "Sweetheart, please, you know me—you look her in the eye and say, 'You know me. I love you. I'm a good man. Please don't throw our marriage away. Please don't throw our family away. At least look into this stuff and consider what I've been saying because I'm an honorable good man, and I deserve that much respect.'" Have you not had that conversation with her?

Yes. And what, what did she say? Let me—yeah, John, I'm now not—I'm not feeling too comfortable in getting—not from my own point of—I'd happily share with you anything, but I'm now bringing into something someone that's not party to all of this. Okay. Okay. And I don't think it's really—I probably said too more than I should have anyway. Let me just say, in encapsulating all that 'cause it takes into account my wife and my children: 2004, I told him, "No discussion whatsoever." In 2008, after—out of sheer frustration of hearing nothing or, or not being able to do anything and but me visiting them and and being polite and all the rest of the thing, I then wrote an email to them to try and take away—you know, you talk about the face-to-face—is a difficult thing to do because everyone—I mean, what you just said is wonderful, and it isn't a perfect world, but I just start mentioning these issues to my wife and and and it's a problem for her, and then I get an—I'll admit I then get angry because of the non-response, so that's no good. So what I did, I, I wrote a very careful email, which I showed to other people, which they thought was very polite and everything else, but I basically wrote to my wife and my children saying, "Look, it's now four years since I told you—we've had no discussion on it. I think we ought to, in order for a healthy family relationship now. What I propose: a two-step method. First of all, we ought to at least agree or disagree on certain facts. Once we know what we agree on, then we can go from there to what conclusions we may have." So I wrote them this email, and I wrote down 19 specific facts that came from—there were either Church sources or textbooks—each one of them, and I just asked them to take 30 minutes—probably they don't even need 30 minutes—just because most of them they would readily just agree with, and I said, "Just, just let me know if you disagree with any of them, and if you do, just let me know the reason why." So it could have been a simple email back saying, "Yes, I agree with everything," or, "No, I disagree with number what and what, you know, number 14 and number 18 for these reasons." In all but one, I just got wrapped back from them—similar thing from Holland—not one answer—and a diet tried of other abuse that was held at me. Do you, do you still have a copy of that email? Yeah, the one that I sent to them. Yes. Okay, that'd be—I mean, I'd be, I'd be curious to see what those issues are. We could—but—well, there were simple questions, and uh, what were some of the questions like? Just give examples. Okay, I'll give you an answer. Um, Joseph claimed to translate the Chandu papyrasi as the Book of Abraham, blah, blah, blah, and I quote the source of that—all Egyptologists, LDS and non-LDS, because I think even the apologists in, in, in BYU accept that the, the translation isn't as Joseph said it, you know. Okay, I'll give some other reason. Another one I wrote down: Joseph Smith and Essentials in Church History states that the Nauvoo Expositor press was destroyed because it printed lies about Joseph Smith. In fact, Joseph Smith told the city council the newspaper was all lies. Now I've since then read the Nauvoo Expositor. The Nauvoo Expositor statements about Joe Smith were, in fact, true. He had multiple wives and was teaching the doctrine of plural marriage to others. He had been ordained a king and was planning a theocracy. Those things were true, but it was destroyed, according to church history. So it was statements like that—the obvious one about Adam and Eve and things like that—the flood. I, I put in statements like that—what the church doctrine was and what the church textbook says. So I'm saying, which one do you agree with? Now, if they said, "Right, I agree with the church, and the school textbook is wrong," at least I'd know where they stood on that, but if they say, "No, the church—the textbook is right, and there's a question mark about the church," that's all I was seeking to find. There were, there was some things there that were conflicting, and what was—and they're from credible sources. None of these are from anti—see this thing about anti-Mormon—I haven't used any anti-Mormon sources on anything. I don't even quite know—it's the church's own means—yeah, it's the church's—the church's own sources. So what was your children and wife's response? Again, it was just diatribes. Yes. Even two years later, I asked—I followed up by saying, "You still haven't answered me," and I got even worse diatribes. So, okay, so here's a question: you, you raised these children, you taught them integrity and morality and honesty—actually, John, I've got to—sorry, because of the way this is going—do you know what? Even eight years ago, I was trying—I posted anonymously—it was to protect my children. Now I'm not so bothered about protecting—but you know what? I'm still not going to say things over the air, okay, podcast about them. I'm, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. You're right. I love my children to bits. There's no question about that. I hate what—I hate is what the church has done to them, and I've been a party to—well, that's my question is what—whatever brain—they've, they've been brainwashed. Now it's a very simple thing as far as I'm concerned—as far as Elder Holland was concerned—this is a sudden—I put to him—it's a sudden challenge. Now, either I'm wrong, in which case—it can—you know what? I want to be proven wrong. Tell me. Show me how I'm wrong. Okay, so let's talk—these textbooks are wrong. Let's talk about your letter. Let's talk about your—if not stop the brainwashing, stop telling my little grandchildren, "Follow the prophet," when the prophet is telling them things that are false. I don't want that in my life. I don't want it in their lives. I want to protect them. So it's now 2012, so that's 8 years after, after you know, you first, uh, stopped believing in the church, right?

Yeah. Um, so you wrote a letter to Elder Holland. When did you write the letter? I did that recently, and again, that was the last-ditch attempt because I can't ask my family anymore. So what I did, I wrote to Elder Holland, and I copied it to my family. So what I hoped here would take some of the emotion out of it and look at it more objectively. Here's the father or husband writing to an Apostle. Now let's see how the Apostle responds, and let's observe this—that's what I was hoping for. And when, when did you write the letter? I think it was in May of 201—of 2012. Yes, so last month. So you wrote a letter, and what was the basic—if you could give a summary—what did you do in the letter? Okay, I reminded Elder Holland of our personal relationship, which obviously he hadn't forgotten anyway, and how much we thought of him—our family and everything—and that I had this issue with my family that they obviously were following him and his teachings, and I was not—I, I, I wasn't—and I wanted him to resolve things with us. I said, okay, taking his talk in 2009, I took from that talk what evidence he was giving for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and I offered my rebuttal of those evidences, and I'm just—G to—I'm just going to say that the way you open the letter is really powerful because you said—oh, you've read it? Okay, I've just got it right here. You said, after you set me apart as Stake President, right? You said, "Tom, we are now sealed," which is, which is something that I can totally see Elder Holland saying. Yeah, he said that. Yeah. And, and um, and so you're basically saying, "This is my heart. This is my experience. These are my struggles, and if we're sealed, please, please help me understand these issues." That's it, right? And then, and then you, you kind of refer to his talk on the Book of Mormon and his challenge about that, right? And then you say, "All right, if the Book of Mormon is—if, if, if only a fool would stop believing the Book of Mormon—if only, you know, if, if, if the Book of Mormon is so self-evidently true that you'd have to crawl above it or under it or around it to to stop believing in it," then you sort of ask him a series of questions, and, and these questions were evidences in your mind that the Book of Mormon, you know, was a, was a problem. And, and these are the issues that we've covered on Mormon Stories quite a bit. Sure, from the, you know, the age of the Earth to, you know, anachronisms in the Book of Mormon—yeah, the horses and everything—the fall of Adam—DNA in the Book of Mormon—archaeology—nothing new there at all—nothing new at all—Book of Abraham—change of skin color—um, and these are things that we've covered really extensively on Mormon Stories, um, and then, and then what did you—so what did you want—what did you ask him for? Well, I think I referred to his talk first of all. He made claims in his talk. He said it was true because Joseph would not have died—I mean, paraphrasing here—he said something along the lines of, um, "Joseph and Hyrum gave their lives for the book rather than deny the Book of Mormon. They were willing to go to their deaths." That is patently untrue. Um, anyway, he could rebut me if I say it's patently untrue, because I think I gave him some things there, but his other statement that, "For 179 years this has never been disproven"—well, I'm just giving some—EV—this is without going into authorship and anything—here's some things here that actually disproved the Book of Mormon. He can't just say it's been dis—it's not been disproven because no one's answered that—as you say, the horses become tapirs or whatever, uh, everything changes—the chariots—what are the chariots now?—everything changes—and apparently they weren't throughout—they weren't in Hill Cumorah at all, or there's another Hill Cumorah somewhere else, or Lamanites—they no longer Lamanites now. I've heard these from the apologists. I want to hear this from an Apostle. Now this is a man—you see, he's apart from—he's a man that's—I'm sealed to—apparently we're sealed together, right? Right. So I, I feel he owes me on something here—that that's got to mean something, right? That that's—it's going to mean something—we, we're sealed together. You know, I've got love and respect for him. I think he had love and respect for me at one time. Now what I'm saying is—know—he's the one that's making these claims that this is absolutely true, um, and okay, the apologists say these other things, and we can argue with that. I mean, I listened a bit to when you had Simon Southerton and the, the rubbish they came out with on, on DNA, which forced him to write a book to show that they were wrong on these things, right? Um, so this is the thing—the apologists for some—whatever—and I don't know where their motivation comes from, but they certainly—I won't use the word lie—but they certainly bend things around so that you—it's just—I don't know what it happens anyway. I want to hear from an Apostle who's—first of all, he admits he's an expert on the Book of Mormon—his master's degree at BYU was on the Book of Mormon—that's when he was 25 years old, right? He then did a master's and a doctorate at Yale based on what?—American studies, uh, and the faith, uh, of Mark Twain—stroke—Samuel Clemens. This is a man that's highly intelligent, knows literature, ought to know American history because he's, you know, he did a PhD in American studies. Now maybe that means something different, I don't know, from Yale—from Y—oh yeah, now this is from Yale—this is something I find highly—you know, I mentioned an Oxford or Cambridge—well, you mention a Yale or Harvard and, you know, or an MIT or Stanford or whatever, and uh, right, you know, we listen to those sorts of things, um, right. If they thought he was good enough to give him a PhD, this man must know his stuff, right? And not only that—that, that's—so that's academically—he should know these things. Now, as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, he should know even more, right? If I can't get answers from him, there's no one I can get answers from. So what was his answer? He—not even getting answers—his answer was nothing. He didn't address one issue. So, so let's go through what his—what his response was. Okay, what—what—you have—you have a letter that—did he write you—just an email or did he send you a handwritten letter? No, he wrote me an email. Okay. So you have an email from Elder Holland because I don't have it on—right? Oh, okay. Okay. Just a second. Let me get it. Let me get it. Sorry about that. Okay. Say that again, sorry.

You won't have the full email from him because he had the corporate, um, warning at the bottom about not sharing the email. I didn't copy it to anyone else. What I did, though, is I did a response to his email and quoted certain sections of it in my response because there was a there was a copyright thing there, and well, I'm not sure. I've had legal advice that goes both ways. I don't think that actually—I think I could just show the whole thing, and as lots of people want to see the whole thing. I mean, partly there's some personal things in there about Elder Holland's wife, which I don't think I do want to show to people, and I think he was wrong for even mentioning her. Right, um, secondly, but there's a parts of it which actually show his actual presence of mind at the time, which I think would be of interest to people, but I haven't shared that either. So, so if it's okay, I'll—what if I read—you can certainly read whatever I—what if I read what he what he responded, and then you can respond to little segments of it? Okay, so the first thing he wrote was:

Tom, I love you, but you absolutely break my heart. I've seldom met anyone during my years in England, unless it was your son Allan—and he's a state president—yeah, in whom I saw greater potential. You have a remarkable family, and that of course only adds to the immense pain I feel now.

That's a sweet, that's a sweet beginning, right?

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Then he says:

Oh, My Tom, I weep over you and where you now find yourself. Don't you realize that I've been reading stuff like you sent since I was 25 years old, but I am sad to say, never in all those years with such disappointment.

What are your—what's your response to that?

Well, well, if he has seen those things—well, first of all, when he was 25, there were not DNA studies for a start, right? But, but, but I mean what he's basically saying is—but in in substance those things were there. Now, if he knew about those at age 25, then presumably he answered those things satisfactorily for himself. So all he has to do is give me those answers. Why is he then spent another almost 50 years proclaiming the truth of it, but he's not given us any indication of how he addressed those issues? He's never even mentioned those issues.

What if he just says the spirit—it's the Holy Ghost—it's it's just it's just a feeling—it's it's a different type of truth—it's a type of truth that comes through the spirit and through a different layer of understanding that the intellect will just never be able to comprehend.

Okay, then I would say to you: I know that there are men—and I think they were all men—that flew aircraft into the twin towers and killed thousands of people. Their motivation, we understand, was the Quran and their feeling that they were doing Allah's work, and they were going to go straight to heaven as their reward. That's why they were willing to die. Now, then I can quote you a guy here I know who's a Christian who used to be an alcoholic, and he found Jesus. The spirit has told him, and he's had that spiritual witness, but you know what he told about Mormons? They're not even Christians, and the same God that converted him from his alcoholism to Christianity says that Mormons are not true and the Book of Mormon is not true. Now, so if Elder Holland wants to come up with this—the spirit has told me—I've told you I've had many spiritual experiences, and that was part of my months of coming out is how do I handle this. Now I have—I had a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon was true. Right. Now all I have seen from Elder Holland when he talks about the spirit is emotion—emotion—and you'll understand that, John—no, but he'll say—he'll say—he'll say it's not emotion—the spirit is not emotion—it's something more powerful, and I've said the same thing. I've been up and I've I've spoken in in conferences and things and and even related my conversion story and said: Look, if that were pure emotion, I would have got over it by now. So is the spirit the indelible mark of the spirit? I've been through all of that conversation, but you answer this: I can I can get at least a thousand people all to tell you about their spiritual experiences that they've had, and every one of them conflicts with the other one. Now what we're trying to say here is then: Oh, but it's Elder Holland, and this is the superiority of Mormonism—we're the ones that have the correct Spirit—the rest of them are misguided by whom—Satan or someone else? It's that's a deceiver.

Well, okay, come out and say that—Elder—say that I've been deceived by Satan if that's what you think, and why have I done that? What sins have I committed that has caused Satan to enter my life at a time when I'm about to go on a mission? Okay, maybe that's his way of stopping me from going on a mission. Maybe—no, Elder Holland, you said you knew these issues at 25, so at least address one or two of them to me.

So let's go—let's let's go even—right—go ahead—go ahead—we're not even work—I was going to even—when I challenge him about why Joseph and Hyrum died—di—they died because they destroyed a printing press. They died because Joseph was expecting the Nauvoo militia to come and rescue him. He had a gun on him. All these stories that I was told about martyrdom—no, that's not a martyr. He died because he was doing that, and other people knew he was taking other wives. They also knew he was after young girls. Why was Joseph Smith tarred and feathered? I was told he was such a righteous man. Taken out and and feathered one night, and the next day he he preached on on uh forgiveness. No, apparently he was tarred and feathered 'cause he'd gone after some other girl, and actually they weren't going to tar and feather him. Now I don't know how true this is, according to some sources there was a doctor there that was going to perform a castration on him, but they didn't do that. The tarring and feathering was a lesser punishment for him. Now I never knew all this in church history, and I'll just go back to one item which just shows church history is false—the about the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor. It says quite clearly in church history it was done because the uh what's his name—William W. had told lies about Joseph Smith and therefore it had to be destroyed. It did not tell—from my reading—it didn't tell one lie. It talked about his polygamy or his plural marriage, however one wants to term it—the fact that he had more than one wife, the fact that he was teaching other Brethren to take more wives, the fact that he was ordained a king. I've just read out—I was ordained a king. Of course Joseph Smith was ordained a king, did he not have the second anointing? Of course he did. He was also ordained a king by the Council of the 50. He was setting up a government. He he was running for US president and trying to set up a theocracy. They're the reasons he was killed—not because he wouldn't give up his faith or the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon wasn't even mentioned. So that's what I called him on, and he doesn't respond to even to that.

Okay, so let's go on and see what he what he what he what he says. So he says:

Tom, The Book of Mormon is true. It was delivered by and translated through the gift and power of God.

Um, quick response to that: I I don't know how you really respond to that honestly.

Well, the Quran was delivered by Gabriel. That's the response to that, right? That's what a Mus—that's what a billion and a half Muslims believe—the Quran was delivered to um Muhammad by Gabriel. Then I can find all sorts of other scriptures from to other Traditions that will say the same thing. So that doesn't say it—that's his claim that that happened. Now again what I'll say to you is if that happened, then whatever's in that Book of Mormon will be true. That's the test. See all this thing about—well, it was through the power of God or whatever—that's fine. You know, they're the sort of things you can neither prove nor disprove. You know, we get into the Realms of things that have to rely on people's beliefs or whatever or the position they take, but the book itself is what we're looking at. Now that book and all the things you've rattled off about horses and—I mean, I even going into those things, but I'm just saying about the death before 6,000 years—those kind of things are all untrue. The Tower of Babel, the the black skin, the flood—all of these things are not true. They're in God's—the book that was delivered by the power of God. I don't get it. Explain to me why God would give us a book of Mythology as opposed to all the other books of Mythology and say this one is the true one. Why would he do that when in reality what's taught in it is not very distinct from what we already have elsewhere? There's not—is there anything unique in there? Well, I guess apologists would say there's a couple things, but um, maybe so.

So he says in here alongside this statement: The one thing I know of that's Unique in there is the death before 6,000 years because that's not even in the Bible.

Right. Right. Right. Because it talks about periods of creation anyway. It also says polygamy is not a good thing. All of—yeah, yeah.

So, so after he makes the statement that the Book of Mormon is true, he says alongside this statement: You can post on the bulletin board my general conference talk on the subject.

Now why is he referring to a bulletin board and you posting things? Did you reference in my letter to him? I said—and this is why—yeah, I said to him: Elder Holland, you have made public statements, you know, on the internet, in Church magazines, in books, on YouTube. It's been broadcast through General Conference. You've made statements, and my family hear those statements. You made it publicly to all sorts of people and called the likes of me foolish and misled. Because you have done that, I am going to post this on a bulletin board, and any response you give me will be posted in the same way—I.E., you've made it public, I'm going to make it public. Which which makes it all that more incredible that he responded.

Right. Yep. Because he knew that. So he basically gave you permission to discuss what we're discussing now.

Ah, he knew I was going to do that, yeah, and he still responded. So these were the questions he asked you: Number one: Have you ever had a spiritual experience in your entire life? Thousands. Okay, I think I responded to that, didn't I? Are you having any in recent days or weeks or months? Every day, even by the hour. I'm not so sure in the last 3 hours. What do—what do you think he was still enjoyable? Where do you think he was getting by that question? Where where do you think he was getting at? He's trying to make out—well, first of all, the fact—have I ever had one in my life? He's now trying to—the usual tactic is: Do you know what? I was never converted in the first place. I never had a testimony of the church. If that's true—if that's true—then you should have never gotten the second anointing.

Well, that exactly—CU—surely—go—surely God wouldn't allow his leaders to be deceived about who's worthy of a calling and election made sure.

Right. Right. Hey, now one thing that's irrelevant—that just me—let me add in on the second anointing—after the second anointing, Elder Holland—Elder Helm—called me into his office one day and said: Tom, I'd like you to nominate two more couples for their second anointing. I was flabbergasted. I actually went away and told my wife—I actually fasted—I I said: Do you need it immediately? He said: Well, in a few days. I said: 'Cause actually I want time to fast and pray about this. I took that as a very serious responsibility if I'm going to nominate people for this kind of ordinance.

Wow. So I went away and I F—I went through countless lists of people I knew and obviously went through the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 8, and N method of studying things out in your mind, praying about it, and all the rest of it. So I fasted and prayed, and I went back with two names. Um, so again, if I—Elder Holland saying I was never converted—what the—what your game? Why are they asking me to nominate people for their second anointing? Right. They know I had spiritual experiences. That's as much—and I will say this—I've had spiritual experiences. I am convinced now—I've had them as equal to anyone in the church—anyone.

Sure. And and you say you're still having them?

I'm still having spiritual experiences. Yes. Okay. We can talk about that later. That that's probably its own topic.

So then he goes on to say: No discussion. So you think that he was trying to either say that you were never converted or—what I what I read this to be saying is that he's expecting you to say you're no longer having spiritual experiences. Now isn't that a testimony that you've lost the spirit?

Exactly. It gets back to what my wife said: Satan's got you.

He's not going to get me. So Elder Holland's been quite obvious in that—who's misled—he won't say—when I ask him who's misled me, the answer is obvious: It's Satan has misled me. I've lost the spirit, and then therefore I am listening to the adversary. That's the answer. That's a simple, honest answer to it.

Right. Right. Well, we'll say that—Elder Holland—say that in writing—that that's what you're saying—don't hide behind it and try and suggest things and innuendo and insinuations.

So then he goes on to say: No discussion of the Book of Mormon or the church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ has any ultimate meaning at all without that experience. Which again is—right. A lot of these actually have been commented on the bulletin board. People far brighter than me have have made all sorts of comments on these.

Okay, then he goes on to say: How does your—I'll just read these quickly—how does your family feel about your views?

Again, same as him, right? Um, are are those views helping them? So he's going to where Elder Lund went or or Elder Helm—I forget who it was—basically with the pragmatic view of—lose your family. You know what? He doesn't realize is at least in one or two situations my family's much worse off now than they were 8 years ago—much worse. So it's not that their lives have been blessed and mine's been damaged. In fact, the opposite would be true. I'd say I'm the happiest person in my family alive today, and they're they're struggling. Subjective. That's not what they say, and that's not what they would like to think. They would like to think that I'm unhappy and I'm this angry anti-Mormon. No, I've written a letter—you know, I don't care—at the end of the day, personally, I don't care about Mormonism. I do care about my grandchildren being brought up and not told the truth about things or the lies they're told about their grandfather. But certainly you miss being close to your children.

Right. Yeah. That closeness—and—know we can do things together, and we can do all sorts of things together, but we had a closeness that was priceless. Right. Now that closeness—they obviously can't feel comfortable in talking to me about the church, even though I'd welcome that, but they probably feel that they can't because they don't want—they think—upset me. On the other hand, I can't say anything to them about it. So we can have a relationship—and probably—you know what? The relationship that I have with my family is probably as good as 80 or 90% of families have in the world. It's just not as good as it was. So—had an exceptional relationship. You still see your kids and grandkids?

I see them from time to time. Yes.

Okay, good. Okay. So he asks: Are those views helping them? And he says: So so they don't share my views. I think so—we can't say whe—they would—could help them. I mean, I've got a grandson on a mission right now. I don't know if you know about our English education system, but he got five A-levels at A+. He should be at Oxford University now or whatever he chose. He—no, he's on a mission in France. Right. He should be at university doing what he wanted to do, but no, his parents say he's chosen—no, he was brainwashed to—to, you know, bright as he is—he's out—in my mind—he's out there spreading untruths and has never been allowed that conversation with his grandfather. You know, it's interesting because I've had conversations with him on the past on politics and all sorts of things, and he's bright and in in almost every respect—that things that we've discussed—we've agreed upon—um, but we've never been able to talk about the church. Right. So I think his life is actually worse, and it will be worse because he will be that far behind again with our system, 'cause he goes on a mission at 18. Normally we would go to university at 18. We don't have the system like in the US where you go for a year then do your mission. Right. It actually puts him two or three years behind any university experience. Then then Elder Holland goes on to say: Are people happier, prospering more, doing better following your lead? So this again is a very pragmatic—what are the fruits of your apostasy, basically?

Well, I see that as a personal insult, first of all. Um, first of all, the people that I associate with um nowadays are in the main not Mormons anyway, and as far as I know, all of my friends, all of the acquaintances I have, like me very much, love me, um, and do I—that they seem to want more and more of my company, and they I seem to inspire them and help them, and they seem to live better lives, uh, and I also learn from them also. I'm not saying it's it's just a one-way street, but I don't know of anyone that is in any way disadvantaged or unhappy because of an association with me. All I know of is my family hate the fact that I mention the church. They hate—they—it must be hard for them when they meet someone that they haven't seen for years and they say: Oh, how's your dad doing? You know, and the usual question: What's he doing in the church? How do they answer those things? I think that's painful for them.

Do you think other people in in the British Isles have left the the church knowing that you've left?

Um, some have. Some found out after—some had left and then found out that I had. Um, so I am aware of some but not all, um, and I know some people were influenced over the second anointing uh post and and other things. Uh, some others have written to me on this thing about Elder Holland that's been the last straw with them. They see him for what he is—a a ranting—he's not—this isn't the loving, kind Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ—Christ. This is a—anyway, I know we're going through some of the things that he said. Uh, let's let's keep going. They see it as a rant.

So he says: Who are you trying to convince? Surely not me, is it? Yourself or others?

So he's saying you're trying to convince yourself. No, hang on. I say: Elder Holland, read the beginning of the letter. I've already told him what I'm trying to do, right? I'm approaching this as his debt—sudden death situation. I—from all my evidence—it seems to me the Book of Mormon is not true. He says it is true. My family side with him. I've put to him the two sides of the argument. I've said: Here's are the evidences against the Book of Mormon, and here are your evidences for it. Now please—what I want you to do is—I rebut my evidences against it and support your evidences for it. That's all I'm asking. Then you've convinced me. Yes, you've convinced me. I'm not trying to convince him or my and my family. I'm just looking at it as observers. They ought to be able to—if they were rationally thinking—either Elder Holland is right or dad is right. It can't be both. We can't both be right on this. Right. Now if I am confused or something, then Elder Holland, please kindly show me and lead me as a kind Shepherd.

Bring me back to the fold by showing me either that you've got answers, or um, these things don't really matter because because of this, that, and the other. Don't say to me, "Oh, oh gosh, I looked at this when I was 25; um, they're nothing." Right, right, right, right. That's that's a brush-off, okay? So light years away from that, from from science, from physics, and uh, you know, anyway, that's getting on. So he says, "You can do what you want about the church, so do it: stay, leave, hide, run, burn the Book of Mormon, bury your temple covenants; do anything you want," as the very book you reject says truthfully, "You are free to act and not be acted upon."

Um, Tom, Tom, my heart is broken as I write this. I wish I hadn't begun. I was raised without the gospel in my youth, and now I have it, so I am manifestly the wrong man to talk to about whether to go or whether to stay, whether the Book of Mormon is true or whether it isn't. The Book of Mormon changed my life more dramatically than any book could change any young man of whom I know, before or since. Okay, that's actually a sweet—you did—but I mean that's—I'm just thinking for Elder Holland for a second—that's a sweet testimony. That's just saying, "Okay, my life is better; it's changed my life; I feel it's true, and I just—I'm committed to this," you know? That's what I hear him saying there. It's just, "I'm sorry, but but this is—I'm sticking with this," you know. Well, let's just back up, and I think you're taking a kind um translation of that. Uh, let's say the the way I—I can't remember now all that he he did say—but um—uh, just basically saying the book the book has changed his life.

Okay, do you know what? Um, I've got a book on my shelf right now that has changed my life; it's called *The Greatest Show on Earth*, and it's written by a uh science professor in um Ox—from Oxford University—that has changed my life. Writings of Marcus Aurelius have changed my life. It doesn't make them scripture. The book of the—the Quran—I'll keep going back to the Quran—that has changed the lives of billions of people—many more than the Book of Mormon—have changed it. Harry Potter has changed people's lives; *The Lord of the Rings*. Right, there are all sorts of books out there, and there are a lot of fictional books that change, you know, they touch you; they touch you. You can read a book—I—I've read fictional books that I've cried over. You know, I even saw a program—you remember that TV series *24*—when the hero was some stage there was a some kind of a terrible bomb on a plane, and he was going—he was riding the plane to his death, and the last thing he did was to phone his daughter to say goodbye. I cried when I—that's inspirational, but you know what? It wasn't true. It didn't make it true. The fact that it was uplifting for me to learn the lesson, that doesn't make a thing true. You can write fiction, and it's—and it uplifts you, and it can change people's lives, so that isn't an evidence.

No, the evidences he gave, remember, was that Joseph died di—for it. He refuses to defend that argument now. Suddenly that goes off the slate. The the thing he said in in general conference, remember, he even said the very book that he's holding is the book that Joseph and Hyrum read from—all of that kind of thing. They they were the theatrics that he was doing; they were the theatrics. That's not the spirit; that's theatrics. Okay, okay, and no substance whatsoever. Okay, so what's he asking me to do? Believe—believe him? No, I think Elder Holland—sorry, Elder Lond—put it better: Do I believe his statement that the church—or that the church doctrine—is there was no death of any kind on this planet prior to 6,000 years ago, or do I believe the scientists? That is basically my sudden death challenge. Do you know what? I believe the scientists, and I know fine rightly if any of the Brethren go into hospital, they do rely on medical science to operate on them or get them right or whatever. They don't go by what they feel; they use that, and I—I, you know, I've got firsthand experience of how the church uses science and other things for its benefit. Right, he goes on to say, "I know a couple of Christian evangelists who were both alcoholics and had their lives transformed by the Bible." They—sorry, I said—I said that. Oh, that was you. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, that was one of my answers, you know. Okay. There's another thing: I—I know two people. Yeah, they could say the same thing as he said. Got it, got it. That didn't make sense coming from him, okay? But it was bolded, so I thought that was okay.

So then he goes on to say, "So do what you want, Tom, but don't embarrass yourself by asking about metallurgy or archaeology or horses. The discussion about the power and the promise of the Book of Mormon went light years beyond that a long time ago." Okay, so again, "Do what you like, Tom." So here's this loving person to whom I'm sealed basically says the same thing to me as Elder Lond: "Go do what you want, resign, hide, do whatever you like. I am not going to come and help you, Tom." And okay, so when did the power of the Book of Mormon go light years? And here I'll ask a question: Does Elder Holland actually know what a lightyear is? I mean, what—what concept? How can the power go light years beyond metalogy and everything else? What kind of nonsense is that? Do you know what? That's playing to the audience—the audience of devout Mormons—and remember, I was one of those. I would hear something like that from Elder Holland and I'd say, "Harrah, that's great; he's really nailed it there." What has he said though? Boil that down to—and explain to me—maybe I'm thick here—what is he actually said in all of his talk and his thing to me? He hasn't said anything—nothing but hot air and emotive language. He goes on to say, "I love you and pray God will be open to some spiritual indication of what is at stake here. I do love you, and I will pray through this very night for you more so than I will for the man who has cancer whom I now leave to bless. Yours is the more serious circumstance." Again, I see that as offensive—that I'm in the more serious circumstances—a man dying of cancer. I wonder if he said that to the man he visited and how that man would feel about it. Now I'm sorry, Elder Holland, in my view now, especially with that kind of response, he's the one with the thing worse than cancer, and it—far worse—because not only has he, in a sense, wasted his life on an untruth, he has influenced thousands or tens of thousands—millions—I don't know how many people he's influenced to believe the same tripe that he's trying to trot out—out—and there is absolutely no substance behind it. It—it bamboozled me for 35 odd years, and I—so I—I—I understand why people do it, and I was in awe of him and all the others, but part of that was taking their direction not to look at anything that might be against the church. Now I didn't even go and look at anything against the church; I just looked at science—on history—by historians that know what they're talking about and who don't have an ax to grind. They don't have a particular—POS—I know some will have a position to try and prove—but in the main um, those people get weeded out, and in the academic world it's usually those that are looking for what is the right thing—what is the truth here—and uh, that's not what Elder Holland's interested in. It's not truth. This is his position; he's staked his whole life on it, and I better believe it or just go away and hide somewhere and lose my family, and he's not going to do a solitary thing about it. I asked him to put up or shut up—be man enough—either put up—I'm not talking about conclusive 100% proof that it's true; I'm not saying, "Bring me an angel or bring me God or anything like that." I'm just saying, "Answer the critics." Don't say, "There are no criticisms to the Book of Mormon, or we're light years ahead of that." They've never been answered—never. They they've tried to bring up as apolog—apologetics—you might as well put the word "excuses"—that's all been done—excuses and rationalization—that's all that we've been offered to subst—substantive questions, and all I've asked for was answers, and all the way I've been treated is this way—to give me no answers and to in—infer that I might have sinned in some way or I've done this or something terrible is going to happen to me in consequence of this. No, what is the—what is the big problem they have with truth? You know, it's supposed to be the true church, so truth ought to play some kind of importance in it. I've come to realize, rather painfully, that truth has got nothing to do with it. This is our position, and it's what we defend to the death.

So what do you mean—what do you mean by his—his position is worse than having cancer? I mean, you kind of said it, but I just—yeah—and I wouldn't want to say that to anyone—and—no, hang on, sorry, please take that back, or even delete it. No, it's okay, but I don't think—you know—but you're saying it's a serious thing to—to mislead—you're saying it's a serious thing to mislead people is what you're saying when so much is at stake. Right? Sorry. Yeah, but John, I've got to be careful here. This—going out of context—is completely wrong. No, no, no. Okay, look, I grieve today on the news to hear that Cheryl Crow has a brain tumor. It's not cancer; she's already had breast cancer. You know, cancer is a a word no one wants to hear, right? So I don't—I'm not saying anyone is a worse than that; is a terrible thing to have. Now I'm sorry when I use those words. This is in response to someone saying to me that whatever I've got is worse—I'm in a worse state—now I know what he means because it's the same thing my wife said. This man, presumably a faithful member of the church, is in hospital with terminal cancer. Elder Holland's going to go and kindly give him a blessing. He may have some remission, or he may die. If he dies, it doesn't matter, because he's all right for the next life—blah blah blah—it's no problem; whereas me, I'm a son of perdition—that's what he's saying—that's why my position is worse. Now I'm saying, "No, you know, I went through all the nightmares about perdition; I had night sweats about it—that I would be cast into outer darkness just because of what—telling the truth." Now I've come to terms with that, and you know what? I'm not going to outer darkness, and all I'm saying is, "No, Elder Holland, you haven't got worse than cancer—not—not in any ways." I—I retract anything that I've said that—oh, that's fine. Um, all right, I—I—I take that back, but I'm saying he's in a bad condition because he's in the position as an apostle and as uh someone that has a doctor in American studies to actually get to grips with this and show us all one way or the other. Now what he's shown is that it's not true—not—he hasn't shown that it's true; he's done the opposite. He's blurted, and he's—he's gone all emotive and on the attack about it being true, and of course it's light years away—the power of the book of Mor—no—most—you get someone to actually read the Book of Mormon; it's no great work of literature. Most members—you've got to force them to read the Book of Mormon. I've been through all that. I used—you know, I've got a daughter, unfortunately, that's—that's read the Book of Mormon or the scriptures every day of her life for the last 30 years. That's commendable, because that's the way she was taught in—s—and everything else, and people do that, but most members do not; most members can't be bothered. Most times when I speak to a Christian even about uh their faith, they've never read the Bible; they only know certain quotes from it; they've never read it. All right, now he's—he's an apostle that knows these things, so he can put it to bed one way or the other. It's either true—it's his statement—I only put back to him his statements—this sudden death—which he's talked about now for 20 years or more—he's done it in books and talks; this is not a new thing he's come up with; he's always said it's a sudden death—it's either true or it's the biggest fraud of all. Now I've never used words like that, but I'm saying it's either true or it's false. He's only shown me that it's false—not that it's true. Sorry, got it. No, I got it. So um—and then he ends the letter with—with immense sorrow but unfailing love. Now did—did—did you cut any parts of the letter out where he actually responded to your actual questions? No, no, he never responded at all. So he didn't say, "Go read this book or go read this article or check out this site." The only parts I—I let—let out were personal things about what he was doing in his office right then—uh, his personal state of mind at the time, which I think has relevance, but I didn't feel like sharing that because uh—do you know what? I don't know; some people will say that's a calculated message that Elder Holland had—not for me but for everyone else—who's actually trying to warn people. I actually don't believe that. I think he's actually—for—he actually did that, and uh, maybe regrets it now. I don't know, but he did that on the spur of the moment when he should have been somewhere else. He stayed later in the office, did that email, and I know the reason why he would have done that because I'd been trying to phone him that day, and he got that off his uh—off his chest, and uh, maybe that should actually have gone through some other Apostles, and there's no other apostle that would have allowed him to have written that.

Do you feel like—do you feel like it's weird that you could be sued if you shared the actual email you shared with you? Is it weird? Well, how—how does it seem to you that I don't even care if they do sue me? Sue me then. I—I guess I was just trying to be respectful um, but how does that strike you—that—that his—that his conversation with you is—is sort of protected by law so that you can't share it? Well, I don't—because okay, he puts that disclaimer on it, but some people—and there's—there's differences of opinion out there—some people say he is protected—that—that he actually has the copyright on that and I have no right; others will say, "No, once an email goes out"—and certainly knowing all the circumstances and the very fact that he knew I was going to post it on the bulletin board—all of—I think in any court of law he's not going to win uh if he were to sue me anyway. So that I'm not worried about—I guess I'm a little bit—he puts in there the actual location of his wife, for instance, at a particular time. Now I'm not so sure that I want that around the the internet. There are crazy people out there; I wouldn't want any to to identify exactly where my uh wife or—or—or daughter was at any particular time, especially someone like an apostle. If someone wants to get at the Brethren, uh, why not get at Pat or something if they know exactly what her location is—right—or was—right? I don't know. So I don't know; maybe that's me just being uh too protective of him, but uh, I don't really think the world needs—and it's totally irrelevant to the uh the message anyway. That's got nothing to—again, all it was was a personal dig at me; it wasn't anything to do with the the substance of the the letter. I know why he said that. So what—what—how did this overall—so overall then, how did this email make you feel overall? Um, it was first of all it was a great surprise. Um, let's face it: All I could have expected—I expected a no response—ignored—right—to be ignored. Okay, that's number one—ignore it. Number two: a very polite letter um that would basically say, "Oh, you know, there are a lot of things we don't quite understand right now, and in the future we will, and blah blah blah blah blah, and bear testimony"—that kind of thing. I could expect as well. Uh, obviously the thing I wanted, which was the least expected, was uh, "Yes, Tom, okay, I've looked at these issues, and here's the answers to them—blah blah blah blah blah—and yes, Joseph Smith did die uh defending the Book of Mormon for these reasons"—something like that. So that's what I expected. I even expected it to have come out from um a—by—or drafted—I expect him just to hand that to a BYU professor that would have um or apologist that would have drafted the response for him. I—I only expected him just to sign it or—and maybe add a personal note—that's all I expected. What I got dumbfounded me—the fact that it was by email, that it was personal, that it didn't address any of the issues, and quite honestly offended me. I may be oversensitive there, but it offended me.

It offended you. Yeah, I took offense at it, rightly or wrongly. I took offense because I mean you have a personal relationship with them. So what—what offended you about it? Well, okay, first of all, he's suggesting I never had a testimony—I've never had a spiritual experience—my family are better off than I am—I'm going to—I'm getting terrible—I'm in a worse state than a man dying of cancer—um—I shouldn't even bother about these silly issues that he sorted out when he was only 25. You know what—what—what—what problems have I got? That kind of language I find offensive, right? I don't think my letter to him was in any—in fact, most people that have read it say that they're quite commendable to me—is how respectful I was of him—and I've only used any strong language against him in retaliation to what he may have said to me—not uh, you know, I've not been the attacker or the ranter on this. So um, did you respond to his letter? Did you write him back? Yeah, I think that's what you're reading from. Okay, so that's your response, and then have you received any response since then? No, no. Okay, okay. Do you think—do you think—do you think you will or probably not? Um, I don't know. I mean, I'm pure conjecture from the way the Brethren work. I don't—first of all, I think he's been wrapped—I don't know who—WS—him—it has to be someone more senior than him; he's been wrapped for doing this in the first place. I would—I would think, right? This is not what his lawyers or PR people would—would have him do, right? And the other Brethren—right?—see, I remember getting emails from Elder Holland when he was a junior Apostle, and he was at everyone's beck and call; he couldn't get done the things he wanted to do, and he was desperate chasing all over the place. Now he's a more senior Apostle, but he's still got those people above him, and he should have consulted with them. This should have gone through correlation, if you like. This is a quite an important issue, but isn't that also kind of in a strange way commendable that he cared enough about—about you—to—to reach out to you, even though he knew you could share it on the internet, and that he—he bore his testimony to you, even though he knew that it could be—he could get in trouble for it—or that—all right, I tell you what: Yeah, he—he did not write that email out of love for me um at that particular day. I know what happened, and I—I'm not going to share that publicly either, but um, he was not intending to write that email that day, that night, nor in that way. I think he was going to try and go the other route by having someone else draft something and just be polite and even refer me to uh, you know, papers that—as you say—that have been done on all sorts of issues. You're saying something.

What happened in his life that made him write that? That sort of led to him writing that email when he probably wouldn't have otherwise. Is that what you're saying? Something happened that day which, um, as a result of an initiation by me, that caused him to write that.

Yes, okay. But you don't—okay, you don't want to talk about that. Okay, all right. Well, wow. Um, so all right, hang on. No, sorry. I, I will tell you what happened. I had not received a reply, so I phoned up his office and, uh, spoke with his executive secretary, Randy. Okay, and she said that she didn't even know about my letter when I was chasing it. She didn't even know about it. She said it was probably handled by another secretary. She would find out about it and get back to me.

A day or two went by; she didn't get back to me, so I then phoned her again, and she said, "Yes, um, he does have it, and you'll probably get a response in, um, a few weeks' time." Um, I asked, "Could I speak with him?" She said, "He's in a meeting." Um, I said, "Okay, well, when he comes out, please tell him a few weeks is too late. I need this answer now." I was actually surprised to get it that night, but I did expect him to get something to me within a couple of days. Right, so that's why I know he came out of some meetings that day on his way to go home via a hospital and to pick up his wife. He stayed late, and this is part of his resentment, in that he played at the office to write that to me. Now, he didn't intend doing that, but whatever message his executive secretary relayed to him somehow he took that as a serious issue and did it.

And you're—and you not out of love were you basically saying, "Answer my letter or I'll go public or something like that?" No, no, no, no, no. Because you already knew I was going public. I didn't say that, not at all. I didn't; I wouldn't threaten anyone in that way. Okay, but he felt some mercy like if you didn't respond, something bad would happen, right? If there's nothing I can do against him, I'm not threatening anyone.

Right, right. But I'm saying in my life, I needed that answer. Okay, I'm not—I can't wait a few weeks. Got it, got it. All right, I can't wait a few weeks for that and not with my family situation right now. I need to get some closure on some certain issues because I was hoping—I mean, hope against hope—I thought he was going to respond in a way that either—you let's say what could have happened if the response had been right—either it convinced me that the church is okay and I'm back on board, right, or it doesn't, but it's done in such a way that it's obvious to anyone else reading it, such as my family, that he hasn't got the answers and he won't, you know. So either way, I thought, "Hang on, even a non-answer is actually an answer to me," if—if he refused to answer, 'cause that's actually saying he can't answer those issues. So again, I go back to my family and say, "Look, I've put all these issues up to an apostle; he's got no answer for it. What do you make of this?" That's all I was expecting. Now and then, that's the closure for me because then they just say one way or the other. If they say, "Well, look, we still believe the church is true," blah, blah, blah.

You're ranting. Elder Holland isn't ranting; he's very polite and loving and kind to you. Okay, that I understand. And you know what? I don't want to—we don't need to talk about it again, but he did, you know, it's—he rant. So anyway, anyway. So maybe, you know, maybe he'll still respond. Who knows. Well, I would hope, but I did—if you read the end of my reply, I put something to the effect of, "Don't bother responding unless it is of substance," right? Because I do hope that he does, but I don't need any more flannel like that. I mean, give me—you please respond by all means, but answer the questions. That's all I'm asking. And I'm afraid I did put an unkind sort of comment in there somewhere. I said, "Put up or shut up," right. And by "shut up," I mean, "Stop talking at General Conference about the Book of Mormon being the word of God, and in 179 years, no one has proven it false, or there's no other credible alter—um—theory about its authorship." That's—that's patently untrue. There are credible alter—now I'm not saying they're right, but they're at least as credible as Joseph Smith's Theory—or not Theory, but what he says happened. The Craig Riddles and all the rest of the world, they've got some credible theories out there that or may or may not be true, but they're credible. Acknowledge that. Right. Sorry, am I ranting now?

No, that's—that's good. I call it—well, the funny thing is, you see, my—my family will say I'm ranting and I'm angry, and yet when—en the Holland gets up and he did all over England and thumps on a pulpit or in general conference thumps on a pulpit and holds up a Book of Mormon and cries and shouts and everything else, that somehow he's full of the Spirit. I'm not quite sure I understand someone being full of the spirit and spouting things that are untrue, whereas if I get a little bit passionate about something and spouting things which I consider are true and no one has told me they're untrue, I'm a Ranter for some reason. Do you understand that, John? Why would—why—why would that be? Why am I a Ranter and he isn't?

Yeah, you know, it's just people have mindsets, and they have a mindset that it's true. And so if they hear, uh, evidence or comments or commentary to the contrary of their worldview, then it's perceived—it's received as—as offensive and as dangerous. And—and you're—you're feeling the opposite paradigm. You're feeling like you've discovered the truth. You're feeling like you—you—you're feeling like you're now more grounded in reality, and—and so you're excited. So for you, it's exciting. For you, it's—you're feeling the spirit, and they're feeling—they—they're feeling awful, and they're calling that the spirit telling them that you're awful. Okay, you know what I mean? I—this is just me; this isn't anything official, but I mean, I've got the spirit and he's being misled by Satan. That's—I'll go with that. Yeah, because what—you know, the way the church sets it up is the fruits of the spirit are love and peace and joy and happiness and goodwill. Well, certainly they're not feeling that when you tell them the things that you think or believe. So they've been set up to interpret, okay, your words through the filter of their interpretation of their feelings, which is that you must be wicked because they're not feeling the—the hair stand up on their arms and warm fuzzy things inside. And even though you might be feeling—you might be feeling, uh, the hair stand up on—on your—on your arms and the tingly feeling and the inspiration that what you're saying is true, um, you're just now coming from a totally different paradigm.

Right, right. But also, um, when you say that—I mean, in—in fairness, in this whole, uh, conversation we've had, I've just said—I think, other than this recent comment about Elder Holland—I've tried to say very positive things about them. Now, I know these Breen quite well, and I've seen a number of them get angry and upset and all sort—you know, I've seen the other side of things, which I'm not even going to give details on, and I've seen the bitter infighting that goes on even in the Quorum of the 12. You know, this is not a united—"Oh, we're all warm fuzzy." They have to put on that front, um, but you know, you got to call it as you see it sometimes, uh, anyway. Right, I'm—I'm just saying this is not—these aren't just loving, kind people that are trying to—no, they've got whatever it is—turf to defend or whatever reason is giving them this, uh, reason to attack someone or—or people or—or the armed mass. You know, everyone's anti-Mormon, apparently. Anything that's said—now most scientists don't even know what Mormonism is, let alone be anti-Mormon.

So I've got a bunch of just quick follow-up questions. I think we've covered the meat of what we're going to talk about. Um, yeah, yeah. So why not—what's called a middle way? Why not do what—yeah, the new Mormon way? Why not just say, "You know what? It's not necessarily literally true, but it's a good way to live," and I—it's benefited my family. My grandsons can go to Oxford. I mean, what a blessing the church has been in our lives. So he can't—he's not at Oxford 'cause he's—he's on a mission. No, but you know, he's able to go there. I mean, he's—you've clearly could have gone there without the church, though. That's what I'm saying. Okay, I know, but I'm just saying like, why not just—why not just sort of take a non-literal view of religion and say, "Religion does a lot of good things. Be practical. Right? Why not—why not just be—look at what—what's functional instead of what's binarily true or false and just go with it because it—it has good fruits."

All right, I tell—okay, I'll tell you why. First of all, if you were to try and find out all the good fruits of the church, right, and identify them and also make a list of all the bad fruits—fruits—I think what you will find is all of those good fruits could be provided in another organization or another setting. They don't have—you know, the only way on that—if you want a good family, you know, there's—there's plenty of churches and communities and social clubs and all sorts of things. Um, you know, in Ireland, they have a—a local community based around a local game called hurling, which no one else in the world has ever heard of, but it becomes a focal point. Although you might say they're all Catholics, they're actually focused on that. In Malta, there's another game called, uh, botchy that they—they focus around, you know, and whole families go out—the all generations. Now, I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but what I'm saying is whatever good fruits there are in the church, there are in other organizations, but the bad fruits of the church are not necessarily in other organizations, uh—you would say what—such as gay marriage. What the heck does gay marriage—how does that interfere with someone else's marriage? My son, a stake president, believes that the church was wrong in opposing gay marriage. Why is he a stake president then? Um, you know, come out. And now I know, John, you're doing some activity there, so I'm not going to go—youo—but you know, there's no—okay, we—we now come—we've got to understand gays; it's—it's genetic. And you know what? I've got friends that are gays. I've got a nephew that's gay. I went to his 40th birthday party, and it was wonderful. There's 100 gay people there and me. Um, now I'm not gay because genetic—you know, if I wanted to become gay, I can't because I'm not genetically made that way, and that's all there is to it. But there's nothing wrong with them, and if they are—like my nephew has been in a loving relationship for the last seven years; it's as good as any couple that I've seen.

So there's one thing. Then you want to get into the blacks and everyone else—the Jews—the—the church—the Book of—let's go back to the Book of Mormon—the Catholic Church being the—of the—the Earth—the Joseph Smith History—um—all the Protestant churches; their Creeds are an abomination to the Lord—um—they hate the Jews because they're the only people on Earth that would have crucified the—the Messiah—um—women, let's not even go there—and you have a whole list of everyone that's hated, and all non-religious people are hated. President Hinckley gave a talk against atheists at one time—how evil they were—and it goes on and on. You know what? I meet people all the time, and none of them have any of that hatred in them—none of them—the only people I know with that hatred, and the only thing I've heard in my experience, has been Mormons and certain other fundamental-type people. So that—that's my answer. Why am I not a nom? I couldn't keep my mouth shut; that's why I'm not a nom. I can't—I can see how there could be benefits for my—CH—for me and my family now, but not for my posterity because they're all going to be raised in that same cult—or sorry, I used the word "cult"—that same organization. Elder Holland says it's not a cult, or he says some people call us a cult. Well, when you get the kind of thing that's been thrown at me, I think it's pretty definitely a cult. Anyway, so does that answer it? Why I'm not a nom? Now, again, I can have respect for nom. Do you know what? I think my son is probably a nom. He's stake president; he doesn't believe that the—he thinks there's things wrong in the Book of Mormon. He thinks the church was wrong about gay marriage, and he definitely thinks that Joseph Smith was wrong to take more than one wife. Now, if Joseph Smith was wrong to take more than one wife, that's—that makes him a fallen prophet, as the Community of Christ would say, and that then debunks the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Abraham, and everything else. So you know where you stop on this. You can't—I like Elder Holland's, uh, sudden death—actually, it wasn't him; I think someone else was—it—President Ben—someone else—actually, he quotes someone else; I think it was President Benson or someone that actually came up with that sudden death, um, right proposition, right. Um, and Elder Holland is just, you know, mentioned it a number of times. But yeah, I like that—you—this middle way, and I've heard of it in politics and all sorts of things, and maybe you can with coalitions and all the rest of it, but in this case, when a church gets up there and says to the world, "Jesus Christ himself restored this church in the latter days. We are the only true church on the face of the Earth. All the rest of you, your Creeds are an abomination," um, "you've got to come to us for salvation," that in itself is a—is—is not—is rather a toxic message that goes out unless you can back it up. I'm not going to be party to that. Now, at the other extreme, and I'm not saying it's the same, but you know what? In another age, if I'd been grown up and I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but you know what? I decided, "You know, I'm not going to kill anyone. I'm not going to do this and that," but you know what? We've got quite a nice fraternity going here with us, and there's a lot of nice things we do, and also if someone's unemployed or something, we make sure they get a job and—and things like—I'm sure there are aspects of that in—in such organizations. I don't know for sure, but you see how offensive that would be. I wouldn't stay as a—a non-practicing Klux Klan member. Right now, I think the Mormon Church is guilt—you know, we want to go back to Mountain Meadows and all the rest of it. We want to go back to basically child abuse and child rape. You know, I don't even want to get started on that. I'm trying to focus on just the issues on the Book of Mormon, but these are the reasons I'm not going to be a nom. I found out this organization is riddled—it's riddled—once I then found out that the leaders are not as honest as I thought they were—this whole thing—they—okay, they're on shaking ground. This was based on a lie and a deceit from the beginning, and they're doing the best job they can to keep the ball rolling, and they're—

I get your point about anom because they are changing things. The priesthood now goes to all worthy males. They're even talking about what gay is—having callings—where is that—where are they talking about that? The latest Handbook of Instruction—a gay can have a temple recommend and a calling as long as they don't have any sexual activity outside. And then the Church tried to say that's because it's the same rule as for heterosexual couples. Well, no, it's not. You know, fine, rightly, John, heterosexual couples can get married to have sex. Gays—if they're gay—means—right—you have no sex for the rest of your life because we as a church don't want you to get married. There's nothing wrong with gay marriage, and it's coming. The church is on—you see, it's been on the receiving end of too many things—you know, polygamy—it was against women voting; it was against the civil rights movement in the 1960s—you know, you've seen the letter to George Romney.

Actually, actually, I'll just correct you on one thing. My understanding is that we were leaders in the women's suffrage movement in the late 1800s, uh, and that we were one of the first states to allow women voting, but I—I—I think your larger—your larger point is that we did fight—the—we did fight civil rights; we fought the Civil Rights Movement; we fought the ERA; and now we're fighting gay marriage. Yeah, gay marriage, and it's going to be a losing battle because we know the popular opinion—it's going to—well, it's going to go to the Supreme Court anyway. Yeah, and it's just a question of whether it's this time or next time, so it's—it's coming. And then some stage the church has got to face up to that, and it's not as Elder Packer, you know, has—well, let's not even get into the number of people that have committed suicide because of his talks. How—how is the church doing in England? Any idea?

Um, from what I hear, it's, uh, bleeding, so it's not going—no—oh, no, no, no, no, no—not going. I mean, the nearest ward to where I was—that I've got some people that's—they're still living there; they're, uh, they've dropped 50% in the last, uh, 3 or 4 years—people leaving. So I mean, it's—it's—and missionary work—forget it—it's only those that want some welfare or something like that. It's basically immigrants, and that's throughout Europe. You're not baptizing the—you know, when I got baptized in 1969, it was all young couple—young newly married couples starting out in life that wanted the best for their families; that's who joined the church then—not now. And most of the people the missionaries are teaching, if they do find a couple, they are not married; they are living together. So you've got all of those problems to get over. No, there's no—there's not—they're not baptizing, so the church is not growing; it's—it's probably contracting in Western Europe.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't—well, we know it's not reflected in the statistics because the statistics are—are—are actually false. I mean, the membership statistics—all they do each year is just add on to that the—the baptisms basically—not realizing people die. Okay, they'll take in certain deaths, but there's a lot more people die—there's those that leave the church and all sorts of things—people that go inactive—right—people—people—they say 16 million—there's no 16 million people in this church—that you're lucky if there's 5 million—lucky—right—and—and here again a question of honesty—understand the Jehovah Witnesses; they only count—see, we say, "All, we're bigger than the Jehovah Witnesses"—no—as I understand it, the Jehovah Witnesses only count you as a member first of all if you've been going out regularly for a certain period of time, and if you continue going out—if you ever stop—they don't count you as a member, right? So their statistics are actually, uh, active Jehovah Witnesses that are also going around, uh, spreading the—you know, their magazine—The Awake and all the rest of it, right? So their—their 3 million could be more—more than our 5 million or whatever—or 16 million—I don't know. So—

Do you have any regrets on what—on either joining the church, raising your family in the church, or, uh, you know, coming to believe that it isn't true or being vocal about your disbelief? Okay, no. Um, the only regret I have—that I regret joining the church because I've got to blame myself for that. It wasn't forced on me. I—I, you know, bought the whole package—the whole bow of wax—and I brought my children up in it. I regret that, but I'm not going to be bitter about it, you know, because I can't do anything about it.

I did it. It was a long time ago; it was 1969. We're now in 2012. It's no good me being so regretful that I'm going to canker my soul for the rest of my life. No, it's done. I'm sorry now. I console myself by saying there were some benefits to the family. Um, so I think we did have some benefits and try and ignore some of the detriment that there may be. I'm just thinking more now about future generations. I think we can have all the benefits we had as a family; we could have had them in another situation as well. Um, my wife and I were good parents anyway, and and I've, you know, now that I associate with people that are not, you know what, it's okay. You're in Utah; it's very easy to get into a situation, even in England, where most of your friends, most of your associates are Mormons. When you then actually come out of that, you actually find there's good people around that are not Mormons, that don't believe, and they all have different kinds of beliefs. But you know what, they raise children to be really fine children as well; they're good people. So you could have raised a good family outside the church. Who knows? We can't; we don't get that second chance to find out. It's certainly—all I'm saying is there are other people. I know people that have raised excellent children, and those children wouldn't ditch them over a religious view. That's that's all I'm saying to you. Right. Even if they have differences of opinion, those children will still act in a certain way anyway. I'm just saying it; if you, you know, this may be a question you're not comfortable answering. If it's not, that's fine, but let's just say that one of your kids or one of your grandkids ends up listening to the story, which maybe is unlikely, but who knows? What would you want to say to him?

Please, please just talk to me. Let's have a discussion. You know what, a couple of years ago, I took one of my grandsons out for lunch. I had intended to have a discussion with him because he'd already come back from his mission, and we ended up talking about his education and about his music, and I just didn't even—and I knew he wasn't going to raise the topic of the church. I didn't, again, out of deference, out of respect for him, not wanting to upset him. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd done—I wish I'd asked that. Now I would just like them to talk about it. Um, I'm not going to get angry. You see, my family portray myself as angry. I only get angry if people don't answer and then abuse me. That makes—I'm sorry, I'm human—that makes me angry. But if we can have an actual discussion on something, a—that I love, that I love that—and if my mind could ever be changed, I would love that as well. I'm I'm quite happy to have my mind changed. I can change my views politically or in any other way if there's a, you know, a substantive argument for for me to address. So I'd say let's just talk, and let's talk about the elephant in the room. Let's not ignore it anymore. That's all I want—to talk about the elephant in the room. Room. And I think it will benefit all of our lives and certainly future generations. Right. Yeah. So what do you—so you say you've had spiritual experiences recently? Do you still believe in God? Do you still—do you have a new religion? Like, what what is your spirituality based on now? When when when do you want to end this, John? Just do a couple of minutes, just do a quick a quick summary of, you know, what do you believe now?

In some ways, I believe in whatever's real. I believe in reality. Um, I told you about the light switch. Um, I I believe that I will wake up and be alive tomorrow morning. I do believe that now. It may not happen, you know, any one of us. I mean, I mentioned Elder Sackle; he died in his sleep one one night, you know, just after a wonderful day. Um, but I do—that's a belief; it's not a certain, it's not a certainty, but it's a belief, and I think it's reasonable to have beliefs like that. I think it's reasonable to have hope. I think it's reasonable to have faith. But when—and I go into, as I have done, into someone's home, you know, after a family home evening where they have followed the prophet and and faith as a virtue all over their home, the kind of faith they're talking about, I think is wrong; it's and dangerous. Faith is okay, or belief in something that we can't know one way or the other. Everyone's entitled to their beliefs and ought to be respected on that. But if you have faith in something that has evidence against it, then it's either because of ignorance, I.E., and that was me for most of my life. I was ignorant of the arguments against, or having found out about it or wanting to find out, then and you still go ahead with that, then to me that's stupidity. So it's ignorance or stupidity, and I mean ignorance in a um kind sort of way there, not uh just not being aware. But I think what I'm facing in the church where I have—and it's not just my family; it's it's there were thousands of members of the church that I was supposedly friends with and knew me that suddenly avoided me in the street and all sorts of things. Um, if they don't want to know something, then again that's a form of ignorance, and that's that's very dangerous. Um, you know, not wanting those answers. Right. So you want uh to believe—so your testimony—so do you still believe in God, spirituality, scripture?

All right. Now my reluctance is not—see, I'm whenever I'm asked a question, I'll give what I think is a truthful answer. My reluctance on this thing is that I guess what I want is for people to look at these issues. Um, the reason I didn't give my name on the original second anointing was not to make it about me but about the issue, not not about me. Now if I were to say to you, um, do you know what, I've become a Jehovah's Witness, um, or I'm now um a Buddhist, or I'm an atheist, or I'm an agnostic, or whatever, does that then color what people think of the sub the substance of what we've dis, you know, discussed, or not? Right. So I'm I'm happy to talk about that, but I think as a separate issue, and I'm happy to be open and honest with what my beliefs are, but I don't really want it connected with this because what we're talking about here, I think, are basically two things: is is a the the second anointing and B my letter to Elder Holland and his response. They're the two things on the table now. Whether—let's for instance say—suppose I say, oh, I'm a Buddhist. Well, straight away people are not even going to want to listen to this, most Mormons. Um, now I will tell you I'm not a Buddhist, so we'll clear that one off the table. But you you know what I'm saying? I could say any number of badges, and that will then suddenly alienate certain people. I totally get it. Let them see the substance. Now if we want to do another one of these where it talks about where I've come from since this and what I now believe in, I'm very happy to do that. But you know what, that's a separate podcast I think than this. No, I get it. I get it. I mean, a shorter one. I'm not not talking about not a five not a five-hour one. Hope—yeah, sorry. And and you may not want to do that, and and I'm happy even to post that on a board, what my beliefs and things are, but it's I'm just trying to separate these issues right now. Sure. Because I know what happens; it's it's the it's the way I've been questioned in all sorts of things, uh, you know, it's almost the first question: What do you believe in? As if you give a certain answer, and then nothing matters after that; they're not going to listen to you at all. Yeah, that's wrong. That's wrong. So let it let it stand on the merits. You're saying stand on the merits here, and my beliefs, you know, my beliefs don't affect what we've said today one way or the other, what I've come to in my life. Right. It's of no relevance. You know, it's another story; it's another version of my life; it's not anything to do with this. Got it.

I was a believing Mormon. Um, I believed it to be the True Church of Jesus Christ, um, that he had visited and that he still visited on a regular basis with the prophet. I understood that from Elder Ghostland and other people that there was almost a weekly, if if not monthly meeting with of the Savior and the prophet. I believed that all my church life. So I've gone from that to saying, no, this is not true. That's as far as I'm, you know, going right now. Now anyone else look at that; if they still want to take the original viewpoint, so be it. Let them do that. I think it's one or the other. I don't actually see in my life the middle way. I know it works with other people, and I value what you're doing, John, as well in in terms of what, you know, what's going on there. So I'm not going to decry that. I'm just saying you're you're probably a better person than I am for being able to do that. Um, and also you're a much younger person than I am. You know what, I haven't got time to waste on, uh, you know, I I haven't got a generation to change anything. Um, so I'm enjoying each day. Right. And you are—you are enjoying it. You're oh, thoroughly—you know what, I have never been happier in my whole life. I can say that honestly. The only thing I've never been happier—and the only thing that would make me happier is to have my family with me—but even without family, I have never been happier. And this is coming from someone that's had a wonderful family experience, wonderful church life, no issues with the church. I'm not an anti—I'm not an ex-Mormon that was, you know, begrudged their tithing or thought the bishop was awful or whatever they want to talk about. Um, I'm not that. I loved being in the church; I loved everything about it. Um, but I can honestly say to you right now, my stage in life, I have never ever been happier. Never.

Do you think they're going to come after you for doing this interview? What do you you predict? I didn't even think I, you know, you've asked me the question out of the blue. Um, what have I said? Actually, what's un—first of all, that's untrue. Maybe I've given them more information than they would like to know. Uh, um, I I don't know what you see, then I'd have to look at the hand. But what is the definition of apostasy, and am I—see, I'm not actually teaching anything to anyone; I'm asking questions, and I'm not getting any answers. That's all I'm doing. Now if that is apostasy, you know what, it's dead easy; you don't even need a uh disciplinary council. I'll I'll admit to apostasy if that is your definition. To me, apostasy is going against the truth. Now I actually feel Elder Holland, you're an apostate against the truth of science and metalogy and anything else you want to quote. You're an apostate against Yale University, who stands for, you know, credible research. You come and you whatever you want, come and get me. I don't care; it makes no difference to me whatsoever. Or I can feel like what I—I could also do is just write a letter of resignation right now. Either way, it doesn't matter; I don't care one iota. There's nothing that can do to me. If anything, I almost feel like getting hold of um uh I forgot his name now—the other guy that's had the second anointing that was the temple pres—mission president, Gerald Chzn, the guy from Oklahoma. Yeah. I mean, I know he won't, but I mean if if we're the only two members of the anointed quorum that's willing to stand up, then maybe we should convene a disy council of our own and call the the Brethren to account on this.

Do you think they'll—do you think they'll come after me for releasing this interview? Again, what have you done? Um, you've interviewed some—well, I don't know, John. I from what I understand, they've been after you anyway, um, and somehow you've managed to plate whatever whatever needs to be done. So I I don't see what you've done here any different than you did with—to be honest, the only one I've I've listened to was the Simon Southerton one, and I did that—now that's an offense—just kidding. Always—I'm sorry about that. No, to be honest, and this is what—when I said to you, what's this three hours about? Because when I see three hours or two and a, you know what, I need a five-minute segment. But now now do you know what, last night I decided, hang on, I better know what I'm getting into here, so I listened to to the Simon Souon. I was blown away; I loved it. So you know what, you've got a convert here in terms of stories. I'm going to go through yours; I'm going to I'm going to listen to all these stories. Now before I didn't like the idea of an hour or two hours or whatever it was listening. Um, it it is long, isn't it? But no, I was fascinated; I couldn't believe I watched the first one of Simon, which was just over an hour, and I couldn't believe when the hour went. I mean, it was just fascinating. So I'm going to listen—listen to the next one of that as well. So you you you've converted me better than Elder Holland did, John. Well, so you know, a lot of people give me grief for the length, but I time goes so fast for me. I I never get sick of these interviews. So somebody else after I die can edit them down and make them shorter, but I'm I'm keeping them—I'm keeping them long for now. Sure. All right. Well, Tom Phillips, I just want to thank you so much for for coming on Mormon Stories and sharing your very important story. I think you've laid out a very credible set of of experiences and stories, and I just want to beg any believer that listens, any believer that feels as Elder Holland does that these are old or silly issues or ones that were resolved or that were light years past. I want to invite any listener to come on and answer the questions—answer the questions that that um Tom Phillips uh wrote Elder Holland. Will post a link to Tom's letter to Elder Holland, and I would like to invite any listener to come on Mormon Stories and answer the questions in a way that's credible. And I I I don't offer this interview personally as a way to uh get people out of the church or to cause doubt. I guess if anything, I'm just I'm tired of seeing the casualties of families and friendships and relationships and people's mental health suffer because of these credible issues and experiences, and I just want to have a dialogue where we can come to a better understanding and ground our mutual life experiences more in reality and less in misunderstanding or myth or or fable or lie, so that we can really live based on truth. And Tom, I think you've done your best to tell the truth, and I just want to let you know that I and my listeners really honor and respect you for what you've done. Thank you, John. I've certainly appreciated talking with you, and I'm grateful for all the work you're doing as well and your all your intentions. So thank you again. All right, Tom, take care. Take care, John. Okay.