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Hello and welcome to another series of Mormon Stories. Only I am not John DeLin, as you can tell.

This is Natasha Parker, and this is the first episode of the Mental Health slash relational series that we are going to be hosting here on Mormon Stories.

So welcome and we hope that this is enjoyable and useful to all of you.

I want to kind of go over the goals of this series really quickly.

Again, just so my listeners are aware of exactly what it is that we're trying to accomplish through having this series available.

The goals are threefold. One is to give a voice to individuals and families and couples who are currently, or maybe in the past,

undergoing experiences that relate to mental health issues and or relationships.

Number two is to reach out to others who are going through similar problems and maybe don't know where to go for help or feel alone in the struggles that they're dealing with.

So hopefully that they'll understand that there are many others like them and that as a community we can come together and help each other.

And number three is to educate the rest of us who may not be dealing with certain issues, but yet our part of award community or general community or family community where these problems may be taking place and how best we can then be of service to our fellow members.

So with that being said, I'd like to move on to this first interview.

I thought long and hard about who my first sketch should be and I landed on the topic of homosexuality, which I know has been discussed often before here on Mormon stories.

And so I apologize for any who think that maybe this isn't diverse enough, but I will plan on being diverse about all the different issues that we cover.

However, it was through seeing various clients and friends struggle with this aspect of their lives that much of my journey as a therapist and especially as an LDS therapist has been shaped.

So with that intro, it is my pleasure and honor to introduce my very first client that came to me with homosexuality as the presenting problem and I'll be calling him tonight as Marcos.

We're giving him an anonymous name just to protect confidentiality and anonymity of his family.

But hello, Marcos. How are you?

Good. How are you doing, sister Parker?

Good. It's nice to hear you.

It's an honor and a pleasure to be here with you tonight.

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