Episode 600: Josh Yordy, Age 20, Queer Latter-day Saint

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2022

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Josh Yordy joins us to bravely share his story. Josh talks about how mental health challenges ended his mission early and the positive support he received from his mission therapist, mission leaders, parents, and leaders back home in Flagstaff, Arizona. If you have returned home early or are supporting someone walking this road, Josh’s story will help you. Once home, Josh decided to address his sexual orientation, which he had avoided his whole life prior. Part of his journey was serving in the Los Angeles temple for six months in early 2022. Working with a therapist, being in the Temple, and a personal relationship with Heavenly Father helped Josh to accept being queer/bi-sexual in a positive, healthy, and authentic way. Josh talks about how he is navigating his road with both a testimony and being a queer Latter-day Saint. Josh is coming from a place of peace, confidence, faith, and hope—instead of shame and fear. I was deeply moved listening to the spiritual maturity of this 20-year-old man. If you are a queer Latter-day Saint looking for a steady voice of hope, please listen to this podcast. I believe it will help you. And if you are looking to better support queer Latter-day Saints, Josh’s insights and experiences will help. Thank you, Josh, for being you. Thank you for your courage to share you story which will help so many. You make this world a better place. Links mentioned in the podcast: Josh’s Instagram @jdyofficial ** Please Check Out My LGBTQ Book At: ** Deseret Book: www.deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-and-love-embracing-lgbtq-latter-day-saints Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1462135773 ** Want to develop church-supported LGBTQ activities in your local area? Please join our FB group below ** https://www.facebook.com/groups/1433556613672143

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:09.0	I appreciate those of you that reviews on Apple and wherever you leave, wherever you listen to our podcast.
0:17.0	You can't donate to this podcast, just a labor of love, but you can leave a
0:22.5	review. And I appreciate those. I read those and it helps more people connect with the content
0:27.7	of these podcasts. And we don't have a lot of announcements on these podcasts, as you know,
0:34.5	every time, some once in a while I listen to another podcast and I realize they do a lot more
0:38.6	with announcements and music and we just try to get right to the heart of the stories. That's kind of
0:43.9	our sweet spot. And in my home today, as we're recording this is my new friend Josh Yordy. Welcome
0:50.5	to the podcast, Josh. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Josh mentioned to me and felt an impression to share his story on the podcast, and I'll
0:58.2	give you a little overview of the podcast, Josh's story, and then turn it over to Josh.
1:03.7	I'm Josh grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is one of my favorite places because it has
1:09.2	very unique weather, and I'm a weather junkie, And so I've always been fascinated by the Flagstaff weather and get thunderstorms and snowstorms and all that cool stuff. But we're not going to talk about that. Josh served a mission in Fort Collins. And he will talk about why that mission ended early, his emotional health.
1:30.3	And as part of that, he'll talk about his sexual orientation. He identifies as bisexual or queer.
1:35.5	He'll talk about that. He'll talk about what he did after his mission and to improve his mental
1:41.8	health, including working at the L.A. Temple.
1:45.9	And this all happened in the last year.
1:48.6	So September of 2021 is when Josh his mission ended.
1:52.9	So he's been about, we're recording this December, so that's roughly 14 months.
1:57.9	Currently at Arizona State University.
2:00.6	So even though he's in my home, he doesn't live in Utah, just here during the holiday season when we're recording this.
2:06.6	Our prayer listeners, if this podcast will help you, if you're somewhere in the spectrum of queer,
2:13.6	that perhaps Josh's story and his journey to understand his sexual orientation will help you.
	...

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