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Mormon Stories Podcast

829: Mel and Stu Brown's Mormon Transition Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2017

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special edition of Mormon Stories, we interview Mel and Stu Brown from Cache Valley, Utah. Many of our listeners will find Mel and Stu’s experience as a mixed-faith couple inspiring and full of wisdom as they share how they navigated differing beliefs—eventually leading to the decision to both leave the LDS Church.

We cover:

  • Mel’s upbringing in the LDS Church and how she never wavered in keeping the standards expected of her
  • Stu’s efforts to be clean and worthy to go on a mission and how his experience as a missionary in Oklahoma solidified his testimony
  • How Mel and Stu met and formed a life as a pair of successful entrepreneurs
  • How Stu’s testimony began to waver the deeper he studied the scriptures, and how he made the decision to share his growing doubts with Mel from the beginning
  • Why Stu made the decision to resign from the LDS Church
  • How Mel reacted to Stu’s doubts by listening and not judging—utilizing Impact training she had previously received
  • Mel’s growing realization that the gospel was not brining her the happiness she had been promised
  • How Mel and Stu have molded a new life and share advice for couples who are experiencing a mixed-faith marriage and faith transition

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:09.0

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0:21.0

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.

0:30.0

Thanks for your support.

0:40.0

So, how'd you proceed?

0:42.0

Yeah, so that was kind of the deal we made with it. Look, I don't know where this is going to end up.

0:48.0

But I couldn't sit on the fence. I had to know. And if I studied and came to the conclusion and strengthened my testimony that you have the church is true, I was going to be the best freaking Mormon I could be.

1:03.0

And if it wasn't, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I just knew I had to find out. And so I dove, head in and you've warned so much about anti-Mormon lies and the anti-Mormons they twist off and they take it out of context.

1:22.0

And so if I read a quote, I was going to make sure I read that in context. So I'd get the book and I'd read the entire freaking book.

1:34.0

And especially because I promised mail, I wanted to make sure I turned over every rock that I did things the right way.

1:49.0

And so that next Sunday I went and I talked to my bishop and said, look, I have these questions and I don't know what to do. And my bishop, he was a nice guy.

2:01.0

He was a tire salesman and he didn't have a clue what I talked about. Like, he, I just floored him and he would touch the things that you bring up.

2:10.0

I felt like I brought up everything, but the one thing that really stuck in his mind was to a dismiss polygamy. When we were dealing with infertility stuff, we were just all by ourselves, we had a house.

2:29.0

And she had met somebody at her work that was involved in proctor care. So it's kind of like foster care, but it's usually teenage kids and it's just for six months to a year sort of thing.

2:42.0

And so we had a dozen or so teenagers come live with us for various amounts of time.

2:48.0

And they're usually like troubled teens that they just want to get them out of their environment and they're just too much to like.

2:54.0

We could be good examples for these kids. And so most of them are boys and I didn't want to have any girls in the house because I didn't want to deal with any.

3:06.0

I just didn't want to have any girls in the house, but they call up and said, you know, we've got this girl. We think it'd be really good fit for your house.

3:18.0

The program and mail ended up talking to me into, okay, we can try having a girl. And so some of them came out to be the ones that stayed with us the longest. And I think we got closest to one of the things I was nervous about was just, I don't want a teenage girl in the house.

3:35.0

It's ever going to accuse me of anything. So I was never in the same room with them alone. I don't think I ever hugged them or shook their head. Like I never touched them at all.

3:45.0

Just because that was one thing I was petrified about. But through that experience, you know, I knew what it was like to have a teenage girl in the house that's you feel responsible for. Like one of them ran away ones.

4:01.0

And I, like, the police weren't doing a lot and I went and got the security footage from the bus stop to his at saw the guy he was with and started showing it around.

...

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