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Shama Kraney, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

It's my pleasure too.

I thought I'd begin by just kind of setting up maybe three reasons why I thought this would be a great interview.

First is Mormon Stories is about interviewing interesting Mormons.

I consider you to be a Mormon, anyone who sort of has been or will be or is a Mormon now or is affiliated in some way.

I kind of see Mormonism as a culture and you're right there in the middle of it.

So I thought your story would be interesting and I'm really excited just to hear about your journey.

That's the first reason.

Second reason, there are plenty of members of the LDS church who end up leaving it.

And some would argue that far too many of them become disbelievers or atheists or just struggle to find some type of spiritual destination.

And the sense of meaning or community.

Now, plenty of people who I talk to who are atheist or agnostic find a place that they're very happy with.

So I don't want to give the impression that that's everyone.

But I know that there are many who leave who do want some type of spiritual or religious replacement.

And evangelical Christianity is one place they could go.

So to the extent that you can make an appeal for why a former member of the church might consider evangelical Christianity, I'd be interested in that.

And then the third is there are a lot of believing Mormons, LDS church members or non, who sort of have been following your show and have a lot of questions.

So I've sent emails, put up a blog post to get as many people to ask questions as they can.

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