777: Losing the Lamanites - Gabriel Misla (Puerto Rico) Pt. 1
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2017
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Continuing our series on “Losing the Lamanites,” we interview Gabriel Misla who originated from the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. We cover:
- Gabriel’s experience joining the Church as a young man in the island territory and his eventual immigration to the mainland US
- His mission service to the Dominican Republic, and the cultural nuances between the two islands that heightened his sensitivity to how race is viewed in the LDS Church
- How he came to terms with his sexuality and his experience as a gay Latter-day Saint, including spending time in Evergreen
- His reminiscence of elation of being from the tribe of Ephraim in his patriarchal blessing because it meant he was more like his white Utah missionary companions—and now his regret over how his thinking was influenced by the Church’s views on race
- His thoughts and feelings over the Book of Mormon’s still accepted views on Lamanites and race, and what he feels the Church should do
- His vision and plans for the future as a post-Mormon still living in Utah
Transcript
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| 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. |
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| 0:30.0 | Thanks for your support. |
| 0:32.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host John D'Lin. |
| 0:46.0 | It is July 18th, 2017 and I have to admit it's a little bit weird for me to be starting another podcast because I just finished an epic five hour podcast interview with Laurie Lee. |
| 1:03.0 | It was definitely one of my favorite interviews ever where we talked about her experience as a transgender female within Mormonism. |
| 1:13.0 | She served as a state president and as lead architect on temples for the LDS church for 20 years and it was a wonderful interview and I didn't plan to be doing seven hours worth of podcast interviews in a single day, but here we are. |
| 1:30.0 | I am just so super excited for today's interview as well. |
| 1:35.0 | And so thanks for tuning in. We've already got 16 people joining us on Facebook Live. |
| 1:41.0 | But for those who are joining us either live or asynchronously, we are doing part four in our series called Losing the Laminites. |
| 1:52.0 | So we had this idea to talk to various Mormons or post Mormons throughout the world who were raised being told that they were Laminites so that they were descendants of Lehigh, Lamin and Lemio from the Book of Mormon. |
| 2:09.0 | Maybe they had dark skin. Maybe they didn't oftentimes there from North America, Central or South America or the Caribbean. |
| 2:18.0 | But in all cases, we're trying to process with them not only sort of what their experiences were as Mormons in Latin America or again as Native Americans or Polynesians, but then also what led to any challenges and faith that they may have experienced. |
| 2:41.0 | And then finally, for these people that I'm interviewing, they no longer believe that the Church is true anymore. |
| 2:50.0 | In some cases, they're no longer members. And so we're talking about how they feel. |
| 2:56.0 | And having been in many cases giving an identity, given an identity that either maybe they don't view as very healthy or as possibly very damaging. |
| 3:07.0 | And in many cases, false or untrue. Sounds like a heavy and serious and unpleasant topic, but we've had some amazing interview so far. |
| 3:17.0 | So we first interviewed Vania Moore, who talked about her experiences from Brazil. Definitely one of my one of the most powerful interviews we've ever done. |
| 3:26.0 | We're Vania talks about how perfectionism led her to almost want to end her own life. Very powerful interview. Check it out. That's episodes 746 and 747. |
| 3:38.0 | And then we had Hiram Joe, who is Navajo. He's an artist, a painter, a sensitive and brilliant individual talking about being raised in the church in New Mexico as a Navajo with his dad being, I think he was state president. |
| 3:55.0 | And support not Hiram Joe's art. He has some amazing artwork that deserves our support. And then the third interview that we did on losing the laymenites was again another really powerful tear jerkers Sarah Nukem. |
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