Episode 636: Thomas Swain, Gay Latter-Day Saint, Mid 30s

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2023

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Thomas Swain joins us from New Zealand to share his story. Thomas (who grew up in England) starts with knowing at an early age he had feelings for someone of the same gender but put that away and moved forward. Thomas talks about his wonderful mission experience (West Indies 2006-2008), teaching at the New Zealand MTC for 5 years and working for church media productions. These were deeply spiritual times for Thomas which also allowed him to put this attract to men on the shelf. After the MTC assignment, Thomas talks about the 10+ years working to marry a woman and how all those relationships ended. That filled Thomas with the pain of not being able to fall in love and move to his next step as a Latter-day Saint and also knowing he left behind women thinking the breakup might have been their fault. That led Thomas to some of his darkest days with feelings of suicidal ideation. Concurrent with not being able to fall in love with a women, Thomas did many things to serve in our Church including starting missiongeek.net (600K visitors to help prepare missionaries, now offline); executive producer in 2020 global youth theme video “Go and Do” with over 4 million views. Link: https://youtu.be/zeGC8lS20d8 He also helped with FSYs and YSA events around the Pacific. During these experiences Thomas worked with many senior Church leaders. After not feeling able to marry a woman, Thomas stopped dating for several years. Thomas then shares how he starts to date men a couple of years ago, and how that has brought him much joy, peace and hope into his life. Thomas and his boyfriend attend Church and are met with love and kindness from ward members. Thomas also has supportive parents who have come to love and accept their son. Thomas talks about his love of and hopes for the Church and for more kindness/acceptance of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints. I was deeply moved listening to Thomas and his spiritual and emotional maturity. Thank you Thomas for being on the podcast and sharing your story. You are vulnerable and very brave. You story will help so many as we work to expand the boarders of Zion. You can reach Thomas at: e-mail: Thomas Swain ([email protected]) IG: @themissiongeek Facebook: facebook.com/thomascarte Podcast Links: Ministering to LGBTQ Latter-day Saints Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1433556613672143 Richard Ostler Book: Embracing LGBTQ Latter-day Saints: Deseret Book: www.deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-and-love-embracing-lgbtq-latter-day-saints Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1462135773

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:09.6	There was a time before COVID that I only knew how to do podcasts if the guest was in my home sitting across the table from me.
0:17.4	And I'm not a big fan of COVID, but one of the things that taught me is to do
0:21.2	Zoom podcasts and bring in somebody via Zoom. And this is one of those podcasts. My guest is
0:27.8	joining us from New Zealand. Welcome to the podcast, Thomas Swain. Thank you. Thank you so much for
0:34.6	having me. It's an absolute privilege for me.
0:40.3	Tell us how to say and spell your last name.
0:51.1	Oh, it's Swain, S-W-A-I-N. And I have a missionary companion who I've actually made probably the most perfect joke I've ever heard.
0:56.4	I served in the Caribbean and and I remember we went,
0:58.1	and we were passing one of these jewelry stores,
0:59.9	and there was a beautiful,
1:02.2	very large set of black pearls,
1:03.3	and I remember saying to him,
1:05.7	gosh, they're really stunning,
1:07.1	and he just looked at them,
1:08.0	looked at me, and went,
1:11.4	oh, don't cast your pearls before swain.
1:14.1	That is pretty good.
1:17.3	I thought that was pretty good. I never forgot that.
1:25.8	Listeners, this will be, I think, one of our, a really good podcast. Thomas is going to share his story as a gay ladder as saying, that's not too unusual.
1:29.3	Perhaps maybe what's a little more unusual is Thomas is sharing this story at age 37.
1:35.0	He's been out publicly for just three months, out to friends and family for, you know, several years.
	...

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