703: Kim Sandberg Turner Pt. 3 - Navigating our Mormon faith transition as grandparents
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2017
⏱️ 77 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Kim Sandberg Turner is the founder of Women of a Certain Age (WOCA) - a network of support groups for 40+ post-Mormon women. Â In this four part episode, Kim discusses:
- Part 1: Her years growing up as a faithful Mormon in Salt Lake City, meeting and marrying Terry (her childhood sweetheart and husband of 42 years), and the many years her family lived in Bolivia as devout Mormons (Terry serving as a Mormon bishop twice, and Kim in multiple Relief Society Presidencies).
- Part 2: How Kim and Terry's Mormon faith began to unravel as their son Josh came out to them as gay, and as they began studying LDS church history in depth.
- Part 3: Kim discusses how she and Terry navigated their faith transition as parents and grandparents, exploring topics such as how they dealt with their Draper ward once they decided to leave the church, how they have handled parenting and grandparenting through a faith transition, what they do and don't believe today, and the importance of community in their transition.
- Part 4: Kim shares the story of how she founded WOCA, how WOCA operates, and what WOCA means to her and to the other WOCA women.
Transcript
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| 0:31.0 | Okay, so we're back with Ken Sanberg Turner. This is John D'Alan. We're not part three of our interview with Ken. |
| 1:00.0 | And we've talked about her wonderful Mormon life, Mary Meeting Terry, their time on Bolivia. We've talked about raising their kids in the church and that was a beautiful sort of part one. |
| 1:12.0 | How much the church meant to them, how much it was about love and acceptance. And then we talked about how it all enravelled, starting with Josh, her son coming out as gay and then having other kids struggle at various points in the journey. |
| 1:28.0 | And then her own deep dive along with Terry's into the truth claims of the church and the history and the essays. |
| 1:35.0 | And I think there are a few other things you wanted to say kind of about that unraveling. So why don't we start there and then what we're going to move to is what comes after and how she and Terry have built a life after the church. |
| 1:51.0 | Is there happiness and joy after leaving the church? No, we don't know. Super duper happy. |
| 1:58.0 | Don't steal the thunder. You have to wait and see if there's happiness and joy. So Ken, tell us a few things that were important to you about deciding that it wasn't true. |
| 2:13.0 | Are there a few things for you? There was a distinction I kind of wanted to talk about that when people say when you left the church or when did you think the church wasn't true or things like that. |
| 2:25.0 | It was never about the church per se because it was because I could easily and at that time I believe that the brethren were airing in their in things and I could see where they were leading the church. |
| 2:41.0 | Things that were being done in the church were right and all of those things but and that was one issue and I could have a problem with the church but that doesn't mean that would affect my testimony of Joseph Smith because when you talk to me about the church, the church was Joseph Smith and that experience in the grove that I had dedicated my whole life to reinforcing or working the building up of the church that sprang from that experience. |
| 3:10.0 | So when people tell me how they time well you know they've left for social reasons and problems and things like this I worry inside because this is not an ordinary church there is that expectation or that belief that this amazing thing happened in this place. |
| 3:30.0 | Until they really figured that out and decided if that happened or didn't happen they're always going to be wondering and for me I the church things didn't bother I had to go right to the story right to the nub and figure all of that out. |
| 3:49.0 | That took me probably you know good part of a year it was hard for me to let go of Joseph Smith. It was hard because I didn't want it to be true I didn't want the things that were being said the things that I read the things that I knew the problems with the stories the different versions of the first vision which were that was a big shock to me. |
| 4:14.0 | The fact that it was that Joseph Smith that ripped it out of the original handwriting out of the ledger put it in the save for what 20 years or 30 years I don't know how many years and things like this that I felt were deliberate attempts to create a story that didn't exist and keep a narrative alive. |
| 4:39.0 | That was really important for me I had to walk away because I didn't want to always wonder in my life was it true or could it be true I couldn't I couldn't do that I knew because of how I had been it been processed for all these years that that would be a continual haunting right. |
| 4:59.0 | So I had to do that and when I did I remember the moment when that was done when I knew and then I had to mourn I had to mourn the man that I thought I thought that Joseph Smith was and you know you want to know something interesting about that. |
| 5:15.0 | I don't have a problem with Joseph Smith and I don't have a problem with Brigham Young because I feel like they were both men at their times they were doing what they needed to do to survive to feed their families they came up with ideas I don't think he had any idea that this would happen. |
| 5:33.0 | This church was spring up in the desert in isolation and that he would become what he has become to me and of members and I don't have any animosity I don't have any I don't know I just think they were just doing their thing. |
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