John Dehlin

Introduction to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation

[00:00:01] Hi, everyone, this is John Dehlin. For those who don't know me, I'm currently serving as the Executive Director of Mormon Stories Podcast and of the Open Stories Foundation. And the reason why I've created this presentation today is to speak to you briefly about two things.

[00:00:17] Wanted to talk to you about what Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation are all about. First, just to clear up any misunderstandings and I'll let you guys know what we're trying to do. And secondly, I wanted to let you know what is needed to keep Mormon Stories alive in its current format.

[00:00:36] We clearly are at a crossroads where our future is somewhat in doubt in terms of what we're going to be able to do going forward. And so we just want to take this time to explain everything to you and give you a chance to support us if it's something you feel so inclined to do.

[00:00:53] I also want to let you know that this presentation is both in audio format and in video format. And so if you want to access the visuals for this presentation, which I think will help you better understand what we're trying to do, please check out YouTube.com mormonstories for the video or you can check us out@mormonstories.org Now, I've actually divided this presentation up into two parts. There's a short version and a full version. The short version is literally going to be just a few minutes, but I hope you'll stick around for the full version version both are contained within this presentation. So let's start with the short version.

[00:01:31] We wanted to make it clear first and foremost that we in Mormon Stories at the Open Stories foundation believe that there is an amazing amount of good within the LDS Church and within Mormonism. And we start from a place of love and appreciation for both Mormons and for all things Mormon, including Mormonism.

[00:01:53] We really feel it's important to state that up front. But secondly, we wanted to also note the fact that, as Elder Marlon Jensen said in 2011, quote, maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of, I'll call it apostasy like we're having now, end quote. This is something that we've been noticing at Mormon Stories and at the Open Stories foundation.

[00:02:17] And as we've done our research on the why Mormons Question study, we've found ourselves that there's strong indicators that disbelief and disaffection from the LDS Church is on the increase significantly. And what's more important, aside from the fact that many people are losing their faith in or leaving the church, is how much pain this is causing people. There's a significant amount of collateral damage, pain and suffering that accompanies losing one's traditional faith in, in the LDS Church. And what's been most troubling to discover again from our research on the why Mormons Questions study, is that these people who are struggling in their faith with the church feel like they have nowhere to turn.

[00:03:05] Our studies show that 92% of these people won't talk with members of their ward, 85% won't talk with extended family, 74% won't talk with their friends, 73% won't talk to their own children, 72% are almost a full 3/4 do not feel comfortable speaking with their bishop or ecclesiastical leaders, 66% won't even talk with their parents, and 58% won't talk with their siblings. So these people, a majority of these people, are suffering in isolation, trying to figure out how to reconcile their doubts and their fears and their concerns. They can't talk in church, they can't talk to friends and family, and so they're suffering.

[00:03:49] So the question we're asking and the question we're trying to answer is where can Mormons turn when they experience a major life altering crisis of faith? And just to sort of answer that question really briefly, we started out as a podcast. We now have over, you know, 350 hours in Mormon Stories podcast alone of trying to support people in their faith journeys. But over the past year, we've tried to augment our offerings with Mormon Stories and with the foundation, we've created a Facebook support group that now has over 1,700 members. We, we've created over 80 local support groups that are not just Facebook groups, but they're also groups where people can congregate face to face and support each other in these difficult faith transitions.

[00:04:35] And we've started hosting regional conferences where we're able to travel to different areas of the country and world, bring speakers and meet people, bring people together, and help create open forums for discussion around these difficult issues. That's what the past year, year and a half has been and the past six or seven years of Mormon Stories. And since this is the short presentation, I will just close the short presentation by saying it takes time and money to maintain all these support resources and we can't keep doing these extra things. We can't keep the Facebook groups going, the support communities going, the conferences going, and all the other new projects that we're looking to develop.

[00:05:17] We're without your financial support. So to keep all this alive what can you do? We need you to go up today to MormonStories.org and to donate. You can do a one time donation. What's best for us is if you do a monthly donation so that we can sort of forecast and predict what our income is going to be so that we can decide staffing decisions based on the income.

[00:05:44] And if you're interested in really supporting us at a significant level, we've created a pledge level membership where by making a substantive donation to Mormon Stories, we will be able to help even more people. And we're offering to you the ability to attend Mormon Stories regional conferences for free. And we hope to have special activities for our pledge level members where you can more directly get involved in helping us shape the future Mormon Stories. And that's what we need. And that's the short version. If you don't have time to stick around, that's all we have to say. And we hope that you will do your part to give back and to pay forward what we've been able to give to you.

[00:06:27] If you feel like we've been able to help you. Now for the full version of this presentation, please stick around if you can. We first wanted to start the full version by clarifying what we are and what we aren't trying to do with Mormon Stories. So let's start with what we're not trying to do.

The Mission and Goals of Mormon Stories

[00:06:44] Yes, we have a problem within Mormon culture, but there is no place in our hearts where we're trying to criticize LDS Church leadership. We are not trying to change the LDS Church doctrine or policy that is completely outside our scope of desire or interest or objectives. We are not trying to convince people to leave the church.

[00:07:05] That's why we have the Stale DS website. That's why we have Mormon Matters podcast. That's why we keep everything that we do as neutral and in terms of destination with church activity and belief as possible. But we're also not trying to convince people to stay in the church. And we're certainly not trying to start a new church. So that's what we're not trying to do. What are we trying to do? Well, it's really, really simple.

[00:07:32] The LDS Church means a lot of things to many people. But there are certain areas where the LDS Church is completely ill equipped, unable or unwilling to provide support to its members. And there are five areas that we want to focus on. The first thing that we want to do is support the exploration of the more difficult aspects of LDS Church history and culture in a way that seeks to be neutral. You can Find apologetic resources or faithful resources@ LDS.org and at FAIR and at the Maxwell Institute.

[00:08:06] And you can find ex Mormon or post Mormon materials all over the Internet. What you can't find very often on the Internet are resources that support exploration, where those providing the resources are not trying to either convince you to stay in the church or leave the church. All we're trying to do, much like the MormonThink website, is provided materials that allow people to explore the church, its doctrine, history and culture, and then decide for themselves what the right path is to take. And I can honestly say we have no desire to lead people out of the church or to keep them in the church. We just want to help people explore, find out the information, and then make the most informed decision that they can based on that information.

[00:08:53] So that's goal number one. Goal number two is to facilitate open, authentic discussions of about difficult topics related to Mormonism in a safe environment without pressure. Again, you can't go to your ward to talk about these things. You can't go to your bishop, you can't go to your family. So where can you go to have open, authentic discussions about difficult topics? Sunstone's one place, but Sunset only, you know, has a conference once a year.

[00:09:21] Where can you go? We want to, and we are providing these open, safe places for people to share what they feel without fear of reprisal, and then to allow them to make the decisions that work for them. That's goal number two. Goal number three is to provide unconditional acceptance and support for Mormons who don't fit the mold.

[00:09:43] In the past, the church has declared sort of war on gays, feminists, intellectuals and scientists in many aspects. And our goal is to say if you're an intellectual, if you're struggling with your faith, if you're a feminist, if you love science, if you're politically liberal, if you're gay, lesbian, you know, bisexual, if you're an ex Mormon, we love you, we support you, we affirm you, and whatever path you want to take. And we want to create a safe place where you can feel accepted and loved and validated regardless of your church affiliation. That's our third goal. Our fourth goal is to support those struggling in difficult transitions.

[00:10:24] There are all sorts of transitions that Mormons make. They have faith transitions, they have marital strife and difficulties. Some end up getting divorced again. People experience same sex attraction and have to figure out how to deal with that. Some want to come back into the church after years of inactivity. We want to support all those types of transitions and help people because the church, the LDS Church, does not provide valuable resources for many of these types of journeys and experiences. And then finally, we've, we've initiated various projects to help Mormon culture move in healthier directions. So we've sponsored at least three different research projects, one on same sex attraction within Mormonism and attempts to change sexual orientation.

[00:11:12] We've done the why Mormons Question research that can be found@why mormonsquestion.org that's been presented to leaders of the church at the highest levels. And we have done some other research as well that will be coming out in the weeks and months ahead. And our goal with all of this research is simply to help Mormon culture move in healthier directions through data and academic research. So those are the five major goals of Mormon Stories in the Open Stories Foundation. If we were to say it in another way, our goal is to help support individuals who are suffering in silence. We want to strengthen marriages and families, help prevent divorce and family disunity where possible, and help create healthy spaces within Mormon culture for non traditional believers and non believers so that we can just have more love and acceptance in Mormonism.

[00:12:03] That's really our goal. Now if you go to mormonstories.org you can go to a section called Member Stories where you can read the stories of dozens and dozens of people who have found value in Mormon Stories and how Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation have helped them. But today, in this longer presentation, we're going to target on the story of one individual and his family that we think illustrates sort of in maybe the strongest sense what Mormon Stories is trying to do. Although, you know, it is, it is one of the more strong stories in our, in our, in our library. The person that we're going to talk about today is named Marco.

How Mormon Stories Supports Struggling Members

[00:12:42] Marco is from the Netherlands. He's a third generation Mormon. He served as a returned missionary. He served as a missionary, Elders quorum president, young men's president, he's taught institute, he's been a temple worker, he has a PhD in biochemistry. He's married with three kids. And again, if you haven't, if you're listening to this presentation, I hope you'll go up actually see this presentation visually and you can see this picture of Marco and you can sort of understand visually as well as auditorily how good of a guy Marco really is. Now, Marco's sort of crisis started when he began speaking with the friend who lost his testimony.

[00:13:25] And he really wanted to help his friend come back to the church. And so he started studying issues that that his friend was struggling with. And there were three main issues that his friend was struggling with. The first issue was the Book of Abraham.

[00:13:40] You know, we all know that the original papyru that the church has claimed the Book of Abraham was based on now has been looked at by Egyptologists. And most Egyptologists sort of question whether the text we have for the Book of Abraham has anything to do with the papyra.

[00:13:59] This, of course, was troubling to Marko and he started questioning the Book of Abraham as his first issue. The second was Marco started studying Joseph Smith and specifically his plural marriage. And he realized that Joseph Smith actually sent Orson Hyde, one of his closest supporters, away on a mission and that while Orson Hyde was gone on his mission, that Joseph Smith married Orson Hyde's wife. And this is very troubling to Marco, which was compounded by all the other instances of polyandry or Joseph marrying other people's wives that he discovered when he really started digging into Joseph's polygamy.

[00:14:40] The third thing that really disturbed Marco was Proposition 8. Not only is Marco supportive of gay marriage, but he also is familiar with Doctrine and covenants section 134, 9, which states very specifically that the church does not believe in mingling religious influence with civil government. And as a European, this is something that Marco feels strongly about and started getting really discouraged about as he studied more about the church. Now different people go through a crisis of faith in different ways. For Marco, it was very serious. He started feeling like the church wasn't what it claims to be. This caused an existential crisis of faith. But he felt trapped that he couldn't really tell anyone about it.

[00:15:26] He couldn't talk to his wife. He couldn't talk to his family because he feared the repercussions. He feared that his wife would leave him. He felt like he would be ostracized by his friends and family and he didn't want to cause trouble to anyone. So he started becoming suicidal. He started thinking about taking his life. And in his own words, Marco wrote, as I saw no way forward, the option of ending things permanently for me and my wife and children to became an option that was constantly on his mind. Marco continues to tell the story in the following way. Quote, I'm on my way to pick up my mother in law to babysit.

[00:16:02] As I burst into tears, I had just run a red light at a crossroad. On entering the highway, I wanted to hit the brake but was compelled to keep my foot on the gas. In other words, Margo started running red Lights, hoping that he would be hit by another car because he felt so trapped within the Mormonism that he was struggling with. And he knew that it was a problem when he started running these red lights with his wife and children in the car. And I'm not making the story up. Marco's a real person, and you can find him on Facebook.

[00:16:37] So Marco said, quote, I realized I'd become an actual danger to myself and my surroundings. Now we ask you, what would make someone like Marco, who had so much going for him, want to take his own life? And as we mentioned previously, it's when you are not able to find answers to these important questions or good answers. When you feel like you're alone and broken, and when you feel like there's no way out. When that happens, suicide becomes the only way out that you can find.

[00:17:07] And so now we're going to just take you through how Mormon Stories was able to help Marco. First and foremost, Marco is able to find Mormon Stories and eventually Mormon matters podcasts. These two podcasts alone represent over 500 hours of audio and video content. And the and the only purpose of these podcasts is to help Mormons explore difficult issues and to figure out what they want to do with the difficulties. Some people end up staying in the church, some people end up leaving the church, some people become semi believers or non believers. Lots of different paths are possible, and we try to support and affirm all those paths.

[00:17:46] And these resources, according to Marco, were invaluable to him in exploring and learning all about Mormonism and feeling like he wasn't so alone and feeling like there were answers and that people had worked through these things before and that he could work through these things too.

[00:18:03] The second thing that Marco did is he went up to mormonstories.org and he clicked on the Facebook group link where he was able to join the Mormon Stories Facebook support community. Currently, There are almost 1800 members of this group. And the purpose of this group is just to allow Mormons to support each other in difficult conversations. Like we mentioned previously, you can't talk to your ward or family. There are no places really to discuss these things actively.

[00:18:30] So we wanted to provide a place where people could have those discussions. For those of you who aren't members of the Mormon Stories Facebook support community, we encourage you to join it. And Marco tells us that this Facebook support community was important for him. He was able to go up there, see that he wasn't alone, learn from other people's questions and answers, ask his own questions, and get answers, and Even got to the point where he was able to help some support other people who are in their struggle. This was important to Marco and we feel like it's been helpful to literally over a thousand Mormons across the world.

[00:19:06] The next thing that Marco was able to do was to attend the Washington D.C. mormon Stories Conference. In these conferences we try and create a supportive environment for all types of Mormons. And as you can see on this visual, for those who are watching at this Mormon Stories conference, we had traditional believers, we had non traditional believers, we had feminists, we had gays and lesbians, we had ex Mormons. And there you can see a picture of Marco with his wife Famke, a wonderful couple. He brought his believing wife to the conference in hopes of her having a positive experience and in hopes of her being able to understand him better.

[00:19:47] And for both of them to be able to get some advice and some tips and some support from other people who had been through similar struggles. At these Mormon Stories Conferences, we try to make them comfortable for both believers and non believers. We often, we always start with, with some type of prayer and with, with hymns. We have someone conduct. The music of these conferences is always inspirational.

[00:20:11] At this conference specifically, we had Greg Prince, who's a member of his local Stake High Council and he's also a well known Mormon scholar. Fabulous man. We had an ex Mormon present. We had a prominent feminist, active Mormon, maybe a non traditional believer present.

[00:20:29] Here's a picture of Marco with his wife introducing themselves to the audience. And here are pictures of Marco and Femke talking with other couples, learning from their experiences. Here are pictures of couples again speaking with each other, eating together, sharing together.

[00:20:47] At the end of these conferences, we always have what's called a story sharing meeting. And this is a picture of Marco sharing his story with the other group. It was very inspirational. We've published these stories and others up on Mormon Stories and we hope you'll take the time to listen and hear other people share their stories of how Mormon stories has helped them.

[00:21:07] So these regional conferences have been held all over the country. Salt Lake City, San Diego, Houston, Denver, Atlanta, Boise, New York City. We've done Circling the Wagons conferences to support gay and lesbians both in Salt Lake and in Washington D.C. with more to come. And if you want to go up to our website and learn about conferences in the future, you can do so@mormonstories.org, click on the conferences link, you can register for conferences, you can start your own conferences.

[00:21:35] We think that these conferences have been helpful to thousands of people across the United States and even in Sweden. The next thing that we've done and that we did for Marco was to create these support communities. So we've created support communities in over 80 cities across the world. The purpose of these support communities is for Mormons to find other Mormons like them in their local cities to provide each other with support. So we've got, again, over 60 cities in the United States. We've got Canada, Europe, Asia, and we even have some special interest groups for youth, for gays and lesbians, for single adults and others.

[00:22:15] If you want to learn more about our support communities, you can go to the support communities tab@mormonstories.org you can join them, you can start new ones. And the purpose of these support communities are numerous. Marco, when he, when he went back from the Washington, D.C. conference, started his own in the Netherlands.

[00:22:37] But there are many things that we hope that these conferences are able to do again. These are the backbone that help create these conferences. So we've never really held a conference without teaming with the local support communities to make them happen. But these support communities are have created meetups for people to meet each other. They've created book clubs and podcast discussion groups where books and podcasts can be discussed openly in a safe environment where people can share their feelings and thoughts. They've created playgroups and dinner groups. They've had movie nights and hikes and campouts and group vacations. They've even supported each other during moves and most importantly, supported each other during crises.

[00:23:19] And that's the purpose of these support communities and conferences and everything else that we've tried to do. And, you know, if Marko were to summarize what these things have meant to him, here's what Marco through the Mormon Stories podcast, I became aware of the more mature view that the truthfulness of the church doesn't have to be seen as an all or nothing issue, but that one can relish the good the church has to offer while guarding yourself and your loved ones from being weighed down with perceived obligations, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. For Marco, he didn't necessarily want to leave the church. He wanted to keep his family intact.

[00:23:54] He valued much about the church, but for him, he needed a more flexible approach to Mormonism. And that's what he got. Marco said that hearing the many perspectives on spirituality from people telling their Mormon story has been soothing to his mind and soul. And he goes on to write that attending a regional Mormon stories conference with my wife was well worth the transatlantic flight. It was a great way of spiritually bonding with her.

[00:24:20] And she said that the Mormon Stories conference felt just like being at church. And then finally, Marco said, at present, I share my positive spiritual insights with my wife, while I find solace from sharing frustrations and finding support in the Mormon Stories Facebook groups. So for Marco and Femke, the answer for now has been to keep their marriage healthy and unified to stay active in the church. Famka continues as a traditional believer. The family is not divided, but Marco is able to look to the Mormon Stories community for emotional and intellectual support as an outlet. Now, Marco and Femke's story is different than maybe many others, because for others, the outcome might be very different.

[00:25:01] Some are going to leave the church, and there's nothing that I or the apologists or even the church hierarchy can do to stop people leaving the church. They're leaving in droves, and that's going to happen. Others are going to leave the church and come back later. I know several excommunicated Mormons who have asked to be rebaptized into the church. And that's just a reality that we all have to face.

[00:25:24] And while we hope to save as many marriages as possible, for some divorce is inevitable. But is there a way that support resources can be provided where the collateral damage of a divorce can be minimized? The thing that we want to emphasize here is that almost any combination is possible. And that's why we at Mormon Stories want to be neutral as to people's belief or membership in the church or decisions about their path. We just want to support them in that, in those decisions. If I were to give a final sort of analogy about what we're trying to do, you know, check out this picture of a raft.

[00:26:00] Imagine once you lose your traditional faith in the church, it's almost as if you're on this raft trying to navigate the torrential waters of a river alone. You know, the bank on the one side of the river was your traditional believing self, but now you've left that place. And usually when people leave that place of traditional belief, they leave it for good. And once they hop on that raft, the waters can be treacherous and dangerous. Sometimes people, and I'll advance to the next visual, can find others to join in a small little group to help them get through the difficult times. Unfortunately, sometimes if you get in with the wrong group, things can be quite dangerous and terrifying.

[00:26:45] And as you see in the next visual, sometimes these support communities can have unhealthy results for those who are just trying to find their way and it can leave sort of in chaos where all the rafts are destroyed and people sink to the bottom of the water. And we don't want that to happen to people. And so if we could create a visual for what we're trying to do at Mormon Stories, we're trying to create many rafts of many different paths and options. Some people are going to maintain traditional belief. Some people are going to stay in the church but have a nuanced or non literal set of beliefs.

[00:27:23] Some people are going to stay in the church without any belief at all. Some people are going to leave the church as believers, and yet others are going to leave the church as non believers and never come back. And yet others are going to leave, resign from the church, and then someday ask to join again. And we want to affirm and support all of those possible transitions, because a healthy transition is always better than an unhealthy one. And so we're going to close this presentation by letting you know what is needed to help keep Mormon Stories alive. And we want to do so by sharing with you a few of the things that we've done to help you feel better about supporting Mormon Stories.

How to Keep Mormon Stories Alive

[00:28:04] The first thing we've done is put together an amazing team of board of directors. Joanna Brooks currently is serving as our chairman of the board. I'm on the board. Ann Peffer is not only staff, but also on the board. And then we've got people like Sarah Begley, Natasha Parker, Brian Johnston, Ashley Murbach, Michael Ferguson, and Scott Scott Holley, along with an extended advisory board. And all of these people are helping us steer the ship at Mormon Stories. And I just feel like we've worked really hard to make sure that your contributions are put to the best use as possible. We've also put together a staff at the Open Stories Foundation.

[00:28:46] I continue to head the podcast and serve as executive director of the foundation. But Ann Peffer has been brought on to be part time support even though she works more than full time. She works, you know, for, you know, pennies on the dollar in terms of her contributions. She works at strategic levels at every, every aspect of the foundation, but she's, you know, dramatically underpaid at this point.

[00:29:13] And, and we've brought on two amazing volunteers. Kevin Olson, who owns his own businesses, but volunteers his time to help us run Mormon Stories, helping with a lot of the computer issues and behind the scenes fundraising and operations. And we've brought on Terry Wittenberg, who's a fabulous person. She's a cpa. She's our accountant and she's helped us get our books in tip top shape.

[00:29:36] So that's our current staff. We know that financial transparency is something that's really important to our listeners. So we opened our finances to the public starting in January 2012. If you want to see our finances, you can see them@openstoragefoundation.org we'll be publishing our finances openly and transparently every year. And if you're concerned about our finances, you can just go there and see how much I make, how much everyone makes, and we'll answer any questions you have to the best of our ability.

[00:30:09] We've started a web, a website renovation. If you go to MormonStories.org right now, you'll already see in the menu options where you can find podcasts to support belief, to support critic criticisms of the church, to support marriages, to support women's issues, gay lesbian issues. We're trying to do things to make our content more easily searchable and findable.

[00:30:33] We're also trying to make our website more visually appealing. We've created the Mormon Research foundation now where we've already released some groundbreaking research to help support Mormon culture with other projects in the works. And our final message today is that to keep this going, we really need your help.

[00:30:52] We've created some new options for donations. You can make one time donations, you can make monthly donations, or you can be a pledge level member. We'll talk about each really briefly in terms of monthly donations. These really are the backbone of our foundation. If we can know, predict sort of each month what our income is going to be, this helps know what we can afford to do in terms of staff and in terms of ongoing projects to help make things better. So if I could just make one plea, it's please, even if it's only five bucks a month, please sign up as a monthly donor so that we can keep the conferences going, the Facebook support communities going, the podcast going.

[00:31:34] We cannot do these things without monthly donations. We also have a sort of a more substantive level of contribution called pledge level membership. This involves an annual pledge of $500 or more that doesn't end up being that only ends up being about $41 a month minimum. If you sign up as a pledge level member, you will not only help ensure the future of Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation, but we will offer you free admittance to all future Mormon Stories conferences as a pledge level member. And we're going to be creating opportunities to invite pledge level members into our circle of leadership to help shape the future of Mormon Stories.

[00:32:15] In very direct ways. So again, if you really want to be involved Helping Shape the Future Mormon Stories if you're interested in spending time with me and our leadership team to shape the future, please become a pledge level member. And of course, if you need to make a one time donation, there's a way to do that as well. All these donations are tax deductible, so you know it. You can make sure and get all the tax benefits from these donations. For those of you who have been donating in the past, we want you to know that we've upgraded our systems to a new customer relationship management system.

[00:32:53] So for those who are able or willing, we would love you to cancel your current subscriptions and resubscribe using our new system. This will help us keep you informed of our activities in the future and it would also help us get to you the information you need in your journey. And then finally, for those who want to do more than just support us financially, there are various ways that you can volunteer. If you go to the Volunteer tab up on MormonStories.org you can find out various things that you can do to help support us. You can start new regions in your area. You can take a leadership role in your home region.

[00:33:28] You can help initiate and manage regional events to be a support face to face for people who need help. You can help us host regional events in your home region, plan a conference. You can host a fundraising event.

[00:33:42] You can submit your story so that others can see how Mormon Stories has helped you. We need help with graphic design, with video. If you ever wanted to share your SkyMiles to help help us fly conference speakers into conferences, we could use that. We need help with web development.

[00:33:58] We need help producing podcasts. We're putting together some new podcasts. You could help support one of the podcast teams. We're going to be starting a blog, hopefully soon. There are lots of ways that you could support Mormon Stories in addition to supporting us financially. Go to the volunteer tab on mormonstories.org for more information.

[00:34:18] So just to conclude we are a small nonprofit organization. We feel like we're providing world class content and services on a shoestring budget. Not because we're trying to make money, but because we believe in what we're doing and we know we've helped a lot of people.

[00:34:33] If we've helped you, if we've helped you in your life, we just ask that you pay it forward that you support Mormon Stories so that others can benefit in the same way that you have. We will not be able to continue these things we're doing without your financial support. But if you do support us, we will be able to do not only what we've done so far, but many positive, interesting, powerful things in the future. So to close, please go to mormonstories.org click on a donate button and give us your support. We need your support, and we know that we can help be a positive force for change within Mormonism if you join with us to make it happen.

[00:35:15] So thank you for joining us today. Thank you for all your support. Please give us your feedback@mormonstoriesmail.com and we look forward to many more years ahead with you and Mormon Stories in the Open Stories Foundation. Thank you so much.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.