Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners.

To help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org

and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support.

All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you.

Thanks for your support.

We took a little bit of a different path to get there in a different pace.

But for me too, the gay issue was, it may have been enough reason for me to leave the church, but it wasn't enough reason for me to not believe it.

Right. And that's the distinction that I should make.

So by the end of the summer we were together and we decided to move to Arizona because we had kind of an art to build and support group out there that we had kind of been cultivating over the summer.

And so it kind of became a logical place.

We ended up in Arizona and we lived there before.

So we had friends, support and I got a job.

So that was an easy transition.

And so that would be just kind of settled in Arizona.

And like the first week we were there, I think we looked at each other and we were like, we want a church and I think we said nope.

And that was kind of it.

Over the months I had kind of debated this is how I think I'm thinking, what if there's a 14-year-old kid there who's gay, who's feeling suicidal and needs that person to support.

And that was like my one, the only reason I could think of why I wanted to go to church.

But I didn't know if that existed or not.

And it wasn't enough for me to kind of open up to bring this kind of unhealthy thing back into our lives.

We had a child to protect.

Yeah. I didn't want to throw a job.

...