589: Laura Roper Andreasen - Granddaughter of LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2015

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Laura Roper Andreasen is the granddaughter of LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard. Recently Laura resigned her membership in the LDS Church after struggling unsuccessfully for decades to find happiness and health as an active, believing Latter-day Saint (e.g., serving an LDS mission, marrying in the temple, having children). In this vulnerable, thoughtful, respectful, and heartfelt two-part interview, Laura discusses the following:

The deep love and respect she has for her parents, grandparents, and Mormon heritage.
Her struggles as a child, teenager, and adult with:
- What she experienced to be a culture of perfectionism and shame in the LDS church.
- A family and church culture of avoiding emotional vulnerability and the open discussion of difficult topics.
- The added difficulty/burden/pressure of being a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith and the grandchild of an LDS Apostle (within LDS culture).
Her struggle with low self worth, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation for multiple decades.
Her complex relationship with Grandpa Ballard, who (from her perspective) struggled to balance his role as an apostle with his role as grandfather.
Her perspective on what it is like to be an LDS Apostle, answering many questions for Mormon Stories listeners.
Her reasons for leaving the LDS Church after being unable to find joy within it.

To read from Laura's blog, click here.

Part 1 (Laura's Story):

Part 2 (Q&A):

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners.
0:07.0	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.
0:19.0	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.
0:29.0	Thanks for your support.
0:32.0	The
0:36.0	Conquered
0:38.0	A myth in circling glue
0:43.0	Lead thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.
0:53.0	Hello and welcome back to part two of my interview with Laura Andrierson.
0:59.0	Is that you pronounce it?
1:01.0	Granddaughter of Emmerlso Ballard
1:06.0	and Barbara Ballard.
1:09.0	That is correct.
1:11.0	So in the first part of this interview we focused on your own experiences growing up in the church on the things you've loved about the church, about your relationship with your grandparents and your parents and all the way through sort of you know your mission years, your marriage, struggling with marriage and eventually
1:35.0	struggling with the church and we concluded with something that I think is really interesting which is sort of this idea that if the church is true, even if you resign, there'll still be a place for you because God's loving.
1:50.0	And the main reason you've resigned from the church is that it doesn't bring you joy and the gospel supposed to be about joy and it doesn't bring you joy as hard as you've tried, right?
2:02.0	That's correct.
2:04.0	Yeah, so that's I think that's really interesting and so even now you remain ambivalent about the truthfulness of the church.
2:12.0	You're still very open and maybe even lean towards believing in many or most of the truth claims, but you definitely don't agree with the church's stance on LGBT issues, same sex marriage and its recent policies about children.
2:28.0	Is that all fair or did I get it right or wrong?
2:30.0	No, that's right and you know I do worry that that people are going to be bothered by that, but that that is my honest opinion.
2:40.0	Like I said, check on me in a few months. I may have done more research or learn something new and I might feel a different way.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.