971: Collette Larsen - Rising Strong as a Middle-Aged Woman after the Mormon Dream Implodes Pt. 1

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2018

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Collette’s incredible journey covers betrayal in her first marriage, genetic illness in two of her children, financial ruin leading to a multi-million dollar business, and advancement through and eventual separation from Mormonism.

Part One:

Born and raised in Rexburg, Idaho in a devout LDS family, the oldest of 10 children, Collette and her first husband had five children, two of whom were born with Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease. At 14 years old, Collette’s daughter passed away after a rejected double lung transplant and medically-induced coma. Collette describes rushing into her first marriage at a young age because of guilt induced from clergy interviews when she confessed to youthful indiscretions. Her second marriage also ended in divorce.

Part Two:

After three months of intensive care for her daughter and her second daughter who was also living with CF, Collette had accrued over $1,000,000 in medical bills. Collette describes her first time seeking help from the State Welfare Office. That year, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundationprovided Christmas gifts for Collette’s children.

Collette found great success working with Usana, a new career opportunity that allowed Collette the chance to earn an income from home while taking care of her children. When the company expanded to Australia, Collette moved there for a year with her children. From there, they spent time expanding the market in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea.

Collette’s third marriage unfolds like a fascinating movie script. Listen to the interview to hear how Collette and her husband, the love of her life, found each other.

Participation in LDS-led Prop 8 advocacy in California gave Collette the opportunity to exercise her faith and obedience, but standing on California street corners holding pro-Prop 8 banners forced her to question her actions and faith. The “Exclusion Policy” of November 2015 was a final straw for Collette.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Music
0:22.0	Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon
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0:31.0	a member of the community, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org
0:36.0	and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support. All contributions
0:41.0	to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible in the United States and go towards producing
0:46.4	the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks
0:52.0	for your support.
1:22.0	Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host,
1:32.0	John Dillin. It's August 23rd, 2018 and we have a very compelling and interesting and exciting
1:40.0	interview for you today. Some of you may or may not know that probably the most popular,
1:47.0	most downloaded interview of modern Mormon Stories history is that of Christine Jepsen Clark.
1:53.0	Most of you will know that because most of you have downloaded it but it's this epic story of
1:59.0	this woman who was the daughter of a general authority. Her dad was Malcolm Jepsen, who was
2:07.0	boy K-packer's doctor and best friend. He was involved in the September 6th stuff. But what was most
2:13.0	epic about her story, Christine's was growing up in the 60s and sort of an Orthodox Mormon home
2:19.0	and all that she went through. And then what it was like, you know, she served with the Mormon Tabernacle
2:25.0	Choir and played the organ for the Tabernacle, all sorts of stuff. But eventually it kind of talked about,
2:31.4	we know what's it like to go through your faith crisis in your 60s as a grandma and have kids
2:36.9	and even grandkids deeply embedded in the church when you go through that faith crisis. And that's been one of the most
2:44.9	probably the most downloaded important episode of modern Mormon Stories history. And I decided that I wanted to follow
2:53.9	up on that and to give more stories like that but also different. And so today we have one of those stories.
	...

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