Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 2014

Introduction and Episode Overview

Ben Jalaff [00:00:00] I almost used cold inside the temple because I just.

John Dehlin [00:00:03] Because that word cold came to you.

Ben Jalaff [00:00:04] Oh, yeah, 100%. I'm sitting there like, how did I not think this is a cult. We're doing this, we're doing these signals. I walk out and I'm just sitting there like, whoa, that was not on temple prep. That was not on temple prep. That's the first time, the first time that my true self sat there and like, what the hell are you doing here?

Justine Jalaff [00:00:28] I think Mormonism, when you're raised in a really good, loving Mormon home, it is very safe. But then it doesn't prepare you for the real world. And I started seeing the harm when I moved away from home and started going to university and entered the real world and I wasn't able to make friendships or relationships. I think how it harmed me as a young girl is that it made me naive, I would say. I also saw my mission as an erasure of myself because I just wanted to be obedient. Obedient was drilled into us. Exact obedience will get you the blessings. Exact obedience will get you the baptisms. I worked myself to the ground physically, mentally, emotionally. And I came home and I didn't even know who I was anymore.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:22] You both hit up against the rigidity of the system on your missions. Yeah, you both gave, worked very hard. You both gave it your all. You both like, really, really engaged with that process and walked away feeling like, wow, I totally fit. I was not valued.

Ben Jalaff [00:01:42] And there is nothing wrong with seeking

Justine Jalaff [00:01:45] a payoff, wanting the validation when you sacrifice so much.

Ben Jalaff [00:01:51] Am I wrong here to think like, hey, we' my cheese. I mean, come on, like, this is a two year mission. Why am I so wrong to seek for this? Because this is what actually started to drive me away from the church, is that how much can I do for you? You're not doing anything back for me. I'm looking at my parents are clear enemy now. This is no more questioning about them, Flincy or anything. I saw them as the enemy, which is so sad because they're my own parents. My parents were the only people in my life that will try to bring me value. And I never listen to them because they're not going to church. So I don't value their opinion because they don't have the light.

John Dehlin [00:02:39] This is religion at its worst when it divides families.

Ben Jalaff [00:02:42] Oh, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:44] What it gives you, what it offers you in the beginning, that is the vehicle that makes us accept the conditioning which can be so problematic, where the cost all of a sudden becomes much higher. Than many of us can recognize when we first hop in the vehicle that looks so like it's going to take us there. And I almost feel like, you know, that's how it succeed.

Meet Ben and Justine Jalaff

John Dehlin [00:03:12] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, Canadian and Venezuelan edition. I'm John Dehlin. It's March 28, 2025. I'm here with my partner and co host, Margi. Hey, Margi.

Justine Jalaff [00:03:25] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Today we have a super cool long form Mormon stories faith journey. We have with us today Justine Jolliffe. How do you pronounce it?

Justine Jalaff [00:03:37] Halaf.

John Dehlin [00:03:38] Oh my gosh, I totally butchered it. Halaf. I should have asked you that first. And it's Spanish pronunciation, so I should have known it. Justine. Halaf, right?

Justine Jalaff [00:03:48] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] And Ben. Hey, Ben.

Ben Jalaff [00:03:51] How's it going, guys? Thank you for having me here.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Yeah. And you're representing the Blue Jays.

Ben Jalaff [00:03:57] Toronto Blue Jays, baby. 2025.

John Dehlin [00:04:02] You know, we cover a lot of U.S. united States based Mormon stories, but we have a long traditional Mormon stories PODC of covering international Mormon stories as well. And today we're going to be covering a Canadian version of a Mormon story, but also Ben. You know, Ben was born in Venezuela and he and his family migrated to Canada when he was around 11 or 12. Is that right? But then, you know, spent his teenage and adult years as a Mormon in Canada. So we're super excited for today's episode and you guys had quite a journey coming here. This is an interesting time in the time of the United States for Canadians or Latinos to be visiting the United States. It's a non trivial journey for you guys, is that fair to say?

Justine Jalaff [00:04:56] There was a lot of anxiety, so

John Dehlin [00:05:01] we're extra grateful you would come all this way to our studio. So thank you. And I have a special place in my heart for Canada because my sister Gina married a Torontonian and raised, you know, did her endowments, took out her endowments in the Toronto temple and raised her children in Toronto. So it's personal for me as well. Anyway, had to share that. All right, well, we're going to jump in and we're going to tell both of your Mormon stories. How does that sound?

Ben Jalaff [00:05:29] Sounds good.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] All right, Ben, I think. Should we start with yours? Sure. And then. And then have it merged with Justine's? How does that sound? All right. Where does your Mormon story begin?

Ben Jalaff [00:05:42] My Mormon story begins in Venezuela. My parents are originally from Colombia and they migrated to Venezuela seeking a better life. To understand my story, you have to understand my parents a little bit. So it will lead to why they joined the church. When my dad decided to move to Venezuela seeking a better life. My mom was pregnant with their first child.

John Dehlin [00:06:07] Was there stuff going on in. In Colombia?

Ben Jalaff [00:06:10] La guerilla, the guerrilla was very active. But also at the time, in the 80s, Venezuela was very prosperous.

John Dehlin [00:06:18] This was pre.

Ben Jalaff [00:06:20] This is pre Chavez we're talking about 20 years before Chavez. Venezuela was doing great. It was booming. To be honest. Venezuela had the resources to be a first world country. Politics obviously took a toll on the country. But my dad moved to Venezuela seeking a better life. And my mom was pregnant in Colombia. And that's where the first tragedy strikes. My mom delivers the baby and six days later the baby dies. The tragedy of the story is that my dad couldn't go back to see his first child and to also bury his first child. That's the first one.

Margi Dehlin [00:06:59] So they weren't together?

Ben Jalaff [00:07:00] No. Like my dad had come to Venezuela to carve a path for my mom to come later. And then my first brother, Benjamin, he's supposed to be me, Benjamin the first, and he dies the second. It was a miscarriage.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:19] My parents were walking in the street after work. And in Venezuela, when they're trying to take your money or try to attack you, one guy will be up front of you and the other guy in the back. Anyway, story short, they attacked my mom and pushed her to the ground and she miscarried. The second baby, that was the second one. The third one, they were. They were working at an institute. I think they were cleaning the institute and they were sleeping over there. And somebody had broken into the place. And my mom panicked and put a blanket on top of her head and failed to see my dad pull out a gun.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:54] I guess my dad didn't tell my mom that he had a gun. And he went after the guy and fired a few rounds at the guy. And my mom told that my dad has been shot. And all that distress led to another miscarriage.

Ben Jalaff [00:08:07] The fourth one is me. I'm here now. But that is the anxiety driven parenting for just me. I think I told you guys how anxious my parents were for me and Justine to come here. That's their nature. The last was something that I hold dear in my heart.

Ben Jalaff [00:08:29] My brother Gabriel is born. And I remember Gabriel being around as a kid. And he dies 24 days after he's born. And the reason why I'm getting emotional is because I remember him. Because when I had my son Max, my dad hold Max, my baby, and he ran to the bathroom because he couldn't hold his tears, because he reminded him of Gabriel.

Ben Jalaff [00:09:02] But that's the last tragedy my parents endure. And during that time, they were working at a market with members of the church that owned that market, that they gave my parents some space to work there. So they knew my parents, and they have sent the missionaries to my parents to talk to them.

Ben Jalaff [00:09:22] My parents avoided them because they're naturally Catholic. The whole family is Catholic in Colombia, Venezuela, Catholic is the religion of the country. And my parents avoided the missionaries until one day they couldn't do it anymore. They sat down and the eternal families came up, and my dad was sold.

Ben Jalaff [00:09:43] Like, do I get away to see my children again and to protect my only one? Yes, I'll sign up. My mom was skeptical. She was skeptical from the very beginning because she could not comprehend, okay, you're telling me that we get our children back, but there is something off about it. And she always voiced that displeasure to my dad. My dad was sold, though. He wanted his children back. And that's where Mormonism begins in the Halal family.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] I have to just reflect what I went to serve my mission in Guatemala. We used to play a film strip for investigators. And the film strip was Las Familias Families Are Forever. And the film, it was back in the days when you. You had a little tape recorder, and you would. And it would go, doot. And you would advance the film strip. It was, you know, pre video.

Ben Jalaff [00:10:38] Right. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:39] And.

John Dehlin [00:10:40] And the story was about this family who lost a child, and the child's name was Jaime, and it was really emotionally impactful or manipulative. But there would be the song, you

Ben Jalaff [00:11:00] know,

John Dehlin [00:11:02] and it's just all about the church addressing the issue of a child's death as a way to bring people into Mormonism. And I would bet thousands of dollars that the missionaries showed your parents.

Ben's Family Discovers the Church in Venezuela

Ben Jalaff [00:11:17] I meant to ask you to ask that because when I grew up, the missionaries had a way to structure missionary lessons. From the beginning, I served a mission. I knew that the structure was important. I don't know how the missionary work was in the 80s when my parents listened to the missionaries, but I always found it odd that the first thing they talked about was, families can be together forever. Where I thought, well, the restoration first. And I talked to my dad about it about a month ago, and my dad really recognized that. Yeah, they went after it right away.

John Dehlin [00:11:45] Yeah. We would go to the door, knock on the door and say, hi, we're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we're here to share a message with you about how families can be together forever. I mean, that's literally was our door approach.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:59] I think, too, it's important to recognize, like, that's. So my parents are converts, too. They were converted in the 70s, but same thing. The thing that was shown to them, the Washington, D.C. temple was opening. They were invited, they got tickets, and they were shown a film about families being. I wonder if it's not like a hook. And in considering your family, it was kind of like all that loss, all that family loss just became a. I

Ben Jalaff [00:12:29] would join a hurry the same way my dad did. I mean, if somebody's telling me I'm gonna see my three kids again, why would I say no to that? I'll take that ticket any day, and I will take it again and again. I don't blame my parents for that, because I'm asking. You invited us over, and I needed to connect the dots with my parents because sadly enough, I was a member of the church, and I never once asked them the process of how they got there until I finally sat down and it was just, whoa.

Justine Jalaff [00:12:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:59] Yeah. And I think it probably comes by even the church in Joseph Smith, honestly, because I've been doing some research, reading a new biography of Joseph Smith that's coming out, and it turns out that Joseph Smith's grandfather, Esau, was very secular.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] He did not believe in Christianity. He didn't believe in organized religion. He was an Enlightenment sort of philosopher Grandpa. And he brought the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine to Joseph Smith Sr. And Lucy Mack Smith, which is a book that basically said organized religion's bad, Christianity isn't true, it's reason that should guide us, not religion. Revelation's a bad idea, and the Smith family ignored it, like Lucy and Joseph Smith Sr. Ignored it and pursued religion anyway. And I think it's because so many children in the Smith family died. If you read, you know, all the. Whether It's Joseph Smith Sr. Or Joseph Smith Jr.

John Dehlin [00:14:03] So many deaths in the family. I think Mormonism was born out of dealing with death, trauma, and a desire to keep families together in the afterlife. So, anyway, I didn't mean to go off on that segment, but I think it's important.

Ben Jalaff [00:14:19] No, yeah, obviously it's important because I. I just wanted to. To find out because I do know. My mom told me, like, we avoided them. We did not want the missionaries in the home, and that was it. Right. Like. Like I told you, I would say yes any minute. But it also led them to be so anxious about me.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:38] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:14:38] Like, they literally. My dad is so protective.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:14:43] Not just me, but my grandkids as well. Sometimes to a point of like, it's dangerous. Sometimes where my dad is just like, somebody threatens a family member. And to me, looking at that now after stepping away, I feel like I get that 100%.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:02] So it's a combination of providing an important service, helping people deal with death, but it could also be viewed as manipulative, depending on the point of view. Anyway, that's a powerful intro.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:15] Thank you.

Growing Up Mormon in Venezuela

John Dehlin [00:15:16] So you mentioned in your outline being exposed, and this is gonna be a big Segway jump, but we've got a lot to cover today. You mentioned being exposed to pornography as a young teen. Do you want to talk about that?

Ben Jalaff [00:15:29] Yeah, I want to talk about that. Because there's something important about kids growing up in Venezuela. In the third world country, 10 is young according to society standards. In Venezuela? Oh, no. In Venezuela, you have to grow up faster. You have to be part of the solution. Okay. When I was about eight years old, I was walking myself to school in a third world country. 20, 20 minute walk distance. My parents will leave some cash on the table. Gordo, here's some $20. Go downstairs and get some arepas. Straight to school. Here's the key. I will come home, open the fridge, and make myself food when I come home.

Ben Jalaff [00:16:07] And they will come up at 6. But what that sets up is a standard of growing up quicker. Okay. When the talk about sex and pornography comes into my life at the age of 10 or 11, it's a prevalent thing amongst youth already.

Ben Jalaff [00:16:25] Okay. In Venezuela, we have something called piropo. Piropo is a compliment to a girl. I will see a girl, she looks beautiful. And hey, you look good today. You look good. At 10 years old. We did that. Those Piropos everywhere, kids do that. So the talk about sex among children there was prevalent. When I watched that, I felt like I was the first one. But my friends already seen it.

John Dehlin [00:16:51] You're pornography.

Ben Jalaff [00:16:52] Oh, yeah, absolutely. I remember I came home, you know, after being exposed to it and not thinking much of it, when it started to slip in. Okay. Because I had done it before my baptism, before the missionaries even arrived in my home. I didn't know my parents were Mormon. I didn't know that because they went inactive. That's something I should mention. They joined the church and they go inactive right away.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:14] Why?

Ben Jalaff [00:17:15] Because Venezuela doesn't care about the Sabbath. You don't work on Sunday, you don't eat. And that's what my dad told me. Son, can't go and skip work. On Sunday, I got to eat. So they went inactive right away. So I didn't even know they were members of the church until I was 11. When I have Elder Garanta and Elder Atkins showed up in my house, I already seemed porn.

Ben Jalaff [00:17:39] You know, I had a sex education book bought by my own dad to learn about sex. Already I had that book, White Book. They still have it. So when I came across pornography, I was not in tune with the law, chastity teachings. Then the missions come, and they teach me those lessons, okay? So when it comes again, now I have it in my subconsciousness about that. And I go and ask my dad, hey, dad.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:08] We look at some pornography, and my dad is puzzled because he's like, okay, I'm waiting for a reply of like, hey, you should have done that. What are you doing? No, what he told me was, hey, you. You got to be careful with that because that's a movie.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:25] It's staged, okay? So what it's going to do to you is that it's creating the wrong perception of what the real act is. And you might hurt the special girl in the end if you watch that a lot. So be careful. It's normal. Yeah, you're going to come across it. It's normal. But don't think that that's the end at all.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:47] Okay, the next part is interesting. Well, but the missionaries taught me that. That if I do that, I have to confess because it's a pretty heavy sin. Okay? That's where the puzzle happened. My dad's like, what are you talking about?

Ben Jalaff [00:19:04] Well, the missionaries taught me I need to confess to a bishop. No, whoa, hold on. No, no, no, that's. No, no. You already talked to me, and that's normal. What's the big deal? Well, they told me that it's a sexual sin. It's next to murder. And my mom is listening, skeptical. I know she's processing. And my dad's like, no, no, Gordo, don't worry about it. That's fine. It's normal. Just move on. Just remember what I said. Don't make it a habit.

Ben Jalaff [00:19:31] My parents believe that their walls in the house are thick, so you cannot hear them murmur. And I'm hearing them murmuring in the other room. My mom. Hey, Poopi, what is this that Gordo said that he's look up pornography. He has to talk to a bishop. Oh, I don't know why the missionary said that, Poopy. I'm telling you, since the beginning, something is going on. They're teaching my son these things. Now I gotta make it clear I'm very uncomfortable. And my dad, no moti tranquila. Relax, it's all good, okay? I already told him he's fine. Yeah, Pupi, please. I don't like this. This is normal, you know, children watch these things.

Ben Jalaff [00:20:11] It's very normalized. And that was my first exposure. My dad just literally scientifically explained it to me. Never once mentioned God's watching me in anger.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:22] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:20:23] You know, and obviously that stayed with me because now that I have children, I'm like, how do I teach this as an active member? Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:31] Yeah. So before y' all come to Canada, were you ever like super active in your rama or barrio?

Ben Jalaff [00:20:40] Mormonism in Venezuela was just a church.

John Dehlin [00:20:43] Okay?

Ben Jalaff [00:20:43] We will go on Sundays. Our close friends will know we will go to the Mormon church. But they didn't make it a big deal about it. I didn't go to activities. All my friends were non members. I played baseball, you know, I had my friends from the neighborhood. Mormonism wasn't a thing. It was just a church. We went just because we felt good. Like any Catholic would go to a church on Sundays. It wasn't enforced. We never kept the Sabbath day holy. We never had fages or family home meetings, never went to activities. So no, it was. I was just a Sunday church guy. That's it.

Ben's Family Immigrates to Canada

John Dehlin [00:21:20] Okay, so what made your family need to move to Canada?

Ben Jalaff [00:21:24] My dad likes to be two steps ahead. Once Hugo Chavez is running for president. And around what year is that? When he started running, it was 96.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] Okay.

Ben Jalaff [00:21:36] When he said the word nationalization, my dad knew, whoa, that's going to scrub my merchandising business. They start planning, putting things together. Okay, we need to put a plan to flee just in case we need to do that. Then Chavez becomes president. But my parents business was prosperous. They didn't feel the need to do that. In 2001, my parents started to feel that Chavez was heading the country to the wrong direction. Then they start putting the start selling things. Okay, we're moving. I didn't know we were moving. I'm in the dark about this.

Ben Jalaff [00:22:13] What had happened in September, right before September 11th, okay, my mom and dad tell me, hey, Gordo, we're making plans to go to Disney World. Okay? So have a bag packed up just in case we need to go at a moment's notice. Okay, September 11th happens. I remember my parents talking about it like, poopy, we can travel now. Everything is shut down. I remember that like, oh, so we're not going to Disney World. And my Mom's like, probably not. Just relax.

Ben Jalaff [00:22:45] During that commotion of the two week shutdown of traveling, the house that we had built was the last thing we needed to sell in order for us to finally move. Somebody calls my dad and thankfully my Uncle Rocco was in the house. Somebody calls my dad at night, hey, Benjamin, we want to look at your house to potentially buy it. My dad hangs up the phone. He's excited. And my Uncle Rocco is like, wait a minute.

Ben Jalaff [00:23:12] Who ask to look at a house at 9pm A house that has no electricity. This sounds off. Let's take my car and scout the situation. And then they go. And there they was, a black van, bunch of guys out with weapons, with guns. They were gonna kill my dad.

Ben Jalaff [00:23:30] Because my dad had a reputation in Puerto La Cruz, you know, El Turco, meaning he had a lot of money, okay? He had a lot of money in his car because merchandising business. They go back home and they call my dad right in there, hey, we know where your wife works, we know who you are, and we know where your kid goes to school.

Ben Jalaff [00:23:50] So you better pony up or things are gonna happen. My dad hangs up the phone, looks at my Uncle Rocco, and my Uncle Rocco said, hey, don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything. And my mom's like, we're going to Disney. Let's leave. My mom's crying.

Ben Jalaff [00:24:04] My cousins are there and they're also crying because they somewhat know that what's happening. And I'm packing my bags and here I go to Disney World. And we leave. When we get to Orlando and we cross the border, we take a taxi to the hotel. And that's when they told me, we're not going to Disney World, we're moving to Canada.

Ben Jalaff [00:24:26] And we're going from here to Buffalo, New York, to a refugee home where we're going to stay and then cross the border. We were in that refugee home for two weeks, sleeping on the floor with hundreds and hundreds of people trying to cross to Canada. That's when we move. Like, it was very traumatic.

John Dehlin [00:24:45] They all sought asylum as refugees.

Ben Jalaff [00:24:47] It was like an abandoned school. And we get there and there is people sleeping on the floors. But here's my dad. He looks at who are the people that makes the list? Oh, those three guys right there. And where do they usually hang out? Oh, they hang out in the, in the basement, in the kitchen area. And how do I get down there to volunteer for cooking? So my dad gets a volunteer cooking thing downstairs. Make friends with the guys that make the list to get us to cross the border quicker because people were there for months. There are people there for six months.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] Yeah, he's smart.

Ben Jalaff [00:25:20] Yeah. So he makes friends with these guys and starts passing them some cash, you know, like make friends. And when they were making the list, that's when he. Look at, hey, Ricardo, look at my family, man. Come on. You know? And then Ricardo wrote us, wrote the family, my family. And he passed that guy more money to get a family that we have met. They'll come, come later in the story of that family and they cross the border with us, and that's when we get to Canada.

John Dehlin [00:25:51] Why Canada and not the United States? Just curious. Not that there's one.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:55] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:25:56] We have an uncle that living in Welland at the time, Niagara Falls. He's actually a member. Was a member. He passed away. But we started talking to him. My dad started talking to him in 96 about potentially moving. So we already had a contact there that will help us cross. We also found out that citizenship in the United States was very, very tough to get and it cost a lot of money.

Ben Jalaff [00:26:18] And we found out that in Canada, if you claim political asylum with good evidence that your lives are in danger, that they will put a case together for you and you can potentially stay in the country. So once we knew that, my dad knew it would be easier to move to Canada than the States.

Ben Jalaff [00:26:35] So that's what happened. Once we crossed the border, we're still not secure in the country. We had to put a case together to go in front of a judge and convince him that, hey, you can't send us back, we'll be killed. And because it happened right after 9, 11, everything has halted to. We're supposed to hear from them six months and it took six years for us to get a citizenship.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:01] Wow. Yeah, wow. And I can only imagine during that time and before that time, your parents and you have lived a life of survival.

Ben Jalaff [00:27:12] Oh yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:12] For so long.

Ben Jalaff [00:27:13] But. But see, Margi, they didn't like. My parents work like donkeys in Venezuela.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:20] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:27:21] In Venezuela, the education system is not like in Ontario. I'm only speaking experience in Ontario. That schools in Ontario by area doesn't matter. You have the same curriculum in Venezuela. You have to pay top money to go to the best schools. I went to Colejo, Senora de la Paz, top school, lot of money. We were enriched. I don't even think we were middle class. But my parents are paying this expensive school to give me the best education. Yeah, okay. And that's for me. They always gave me the Best. And I perceived that even in, like, situations were so dire, even when we crossed to Viva la Casa, that's the name of the refugee home. My dad still tried his best to, like, find a solution for everything in that regard.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] I love it.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:13] Thanks for sharing that.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:14] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:28:15] Yeah, we could do a full day just on that.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:17] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:28:17] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:18] Really.

Reconnecting with the Church in Welland, Ontario

John Dehlin [00:28:18] So how did y' all reconnect with the Mormon Church once you got to Canada?

Ben Jalaff [00:28:23] My uncle Ramon, the guy, the contact that we had, we go there and my parents right away connect with my Uncle Ramon. And that's where the members of the church came up. I will tell you this right now. What had happened in Welland when we arrived.

John Dehlin [00:28:39] This is.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:39] Welland is a. Welland, Ontario.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Okay.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:41] Welland, Ontario, is a very small town, about 40,000 people. The church comes into my life in an incredibly positive way. And when I tell you positive till this day, I will quantify it as the most positive experience I ever had in Mormonism in that little town.

John Dehlin [00:28:58] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:59] When I arrived there, I have two things going on. My immigrant friends who are offering me a cultural society that makes me feel like I can make it here. They're offering me comfort. I love these friends. Okay. The Casal family. Matias, Juan Carlos, Janila, Valeria, Moises.

John Dehlin [00:29:20] These are Latinos.

Ben Jalaff [00:29:21] Latinos from Argentina. My friend Mauricio from Colombia. Andres. I will mention one more, but I don't think he wants to be mentioned. But this is a great community. Brenda, Pamela. This community offered me a home. I miss Venezuela. But they are protecting me and I love it.

Ben Jalaff [00:29:44] I'm proud to be Latino, you know, it made me feel that way. Then you have the well in people. The Welland War, the young men's program in the Welland War. Let me tell you something. Mormonism will thrive even with true claims if people behave like people behaving well. And that young man's program came into my home. Three guys, my friend Andrew and Dan and Dave came up. I didn't speak English. They came up in my doorstep and spent a whole day with me just to get to know me.

Ben Jalaff [00:30:27] And I felt love from them. It wasn't a trick. It wasn't them trying to get me to church. It's just generally them wanting to bring somebody in, into their group. They will do that with anyone active, less active, black, white, gay, lesbian. The well and war did not have any boundaries for who they brought in that group. So I. That's where things get messy.

John Dehlin [00:30:54] Let me just ask if it's okay. Justine, you're. I could tell you're getting a little bit emotional. Do you mind sharing what you're feeling or giving words to it?

Justine Jalaff [00:31:04] I just know these people because they were my youth group growing up as well. I was in the Niagara Falls ward, which is 20, about, what, 15, 20 minutes away from Welland. So in our youth, we had the St David's ward, which was the Niagara Falls. So we were the St. David's girls, and then we had the Welland boys. So. And we are still friends with these people today. And when I married Ben, Ben's always been an only child, and we called these guys his brothers. They were in his wedding party. They were. One of them was his mc. One of them was his best Ben, and the rest were in this wedding party, and they were Ben's. Like, we called them, like they're your brothers.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:56] They replaced my brothers, for sure.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:59] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:59] They were really special.

Justine Jalaff [00:32:00] They were his brothers in the church.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:02] This is where Mormonism shines. I mean, we just. No matter how we feel about the

Ben Jalaff [00:32:06] church, the community, the people, you know how difficult it is to just sit and look at that experience. Because the problem, and this is something I wanted to mention, is that I was given the meal when I shouldn't be giving the entree of Mormonism. The entree should not be better than the meal. The well in experience was practically the whole entire meal of Mormonism for me. And once I ate that juicy steak, can't wait to go to the next restaurant. And that's when things just become so complicated, because once I leave that, it's just.

Justine Jalaff [00:32:48] Yeah, yeah. And you should talk about the bishop of that ward.

Ben Jalaff [00:32:50] Oh, yeah. I had a conversation with a friend about a month ago, and I was explaining to him, how do I quantify my Mormon journey without maybe using the word tragedy along those lines? I don't want to. And then we had a long conversation.

John Dehlin [00:33:06] We don't want to give the ending

Ben Jalaff [00:33:07] away, by the way. No, no, I'm not. But I talked to him and I said, man, your dad should have never been a bishop. And he asked me, why are you saying that? He was like the nicest guy on planet Earth. He literally led with his heart. Till this day, I can sit with him with that same bishop and had a conversation with him like, he is like a parent to me. And to me when I see other bishops later. But for him, it's just. He set the bar so incredibly high that I told him, like, he was just such an incredible human to be put in a position of bishopric where you have to just sometimes make tough decisions. And I never once saw it. And it resonated with my parents when they were active. They will always look at that bishop with the eyes of kindness, like he was an excellent man.

Justine Jalaff [00:34:05] And the welfare program at that time, like this bishop and his wife, like just took these. Because at the time this area had a lot of immigrants, a lot of Latin immigrants coming in. Even my ward did. But they took Ben's family and they just took them to the grocery store and they said, get whatever you need.

Ben Jalaff [00:34:31] They treated us well.

Justine Jalaff [00:34:32] Yes, no limit. Go get what you need. And just there was no expectation of them needing to clean the chapel like there is now, or needing to do family history because you're getting help from the church. No, it was just like this recognition of needs. We're here to help you.

Ben Jalaff [00:34:55] I remember when we went to the bishop and said, hey, we don't need any more welfare help. We got a job. He thought that. Did somebody offended you? Like, what's going on? Like, we could still help. No, no, no. We, we're finally. We can work now and all that. It's just everything that happened in. Well, and I don't want to get too much away because we're going to discuss this because this is crucial to the story. What happens here is I don't have words to explain what happens in Wellen because there's the two groups, but then one singular group that I feel like the theology slips in like a snake and you don't even see it. And that's what happened. That I feel like, how do I communicate this journey of what theology?

John Dehlin [00:35:42] Just let's go there.

Ben Jalaff [00:35:43] Well, when I was in Wellandfirst, okay, my English is very poor. Okay, so I'm going to church, but I'm not able to grasp much of it. I'm hanging out with these guys because now I like them. I go to activities now. This is when Mormonism got pushed hard. I pushed the gas hardier. And I'm actively hanging out with them as my English gets better because all of them are Canadian. So now I'm exposed to more English speaking people. My ears are starting to get better and I starting to speak the language now I'm starting to understand certain things.

Ben Jalaff [00:36:18] Wait a second. They look like they're happy. They got big families, they seem secure, they're welcoming everybody. I feel like I'm lacking that. My parents are working all the time now and also stressed out because they had to put a case together to stay in Canada. So now I'm not seeing my parents very Often because they're working a lot.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:49] Yes.

Ben Jalaff [00:36:49] And the Wellen guys and their families, again, these are people being good, take me as one of their own. But then the theology comes in and start telling me that we are of this. Of this world, but not of this world. We are peculiar people.

Ben Jalaff [00:37:08] The people on the outside don't have the same values as us. The people on the outside are dangerous to your testimony. And when things start happening and my brain is quantifying that must be true, because they got the big families and the success. And now I'm looking at the other group, the immigrant group, and I'm looking at them. Wait a minute, You've seen this place too. Your families are also working.

Ben Jalaff [00:37:34] And you guys don't feel like you have a future either, because we're all displaced. So I'm feeling like the Canadian dream can happen now versus trying to hold onto my culture instead of having both balance. Well, I'm like starting to go the other way.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:50] I see.

John Dehlin [00:37:51] So kind of assimilating in the Canadian culture.

Ben Jalaff [00:37:53] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:37:54] And judging your native culture as being inferior.

Ben Jalaff [00:37:58] But that. Hold on, John. That's my brain.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:00] Yeah, that's right.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:01] Because nobody, not a single one of my friends from Welland came to me and said, ben, don't hang out with them.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:06] Right?

Ben Jalaff [00:38:06] No, as a matter of fact, the more the better. Because sometimes the Welland guys, we even include my friends from the other countries to do stuff.

John Dehlin [00:38:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:15] But my brain is telling me that maybe if I want to survive in Canada, I have to be Canadian and this is the way. So the more my brain start to understand more, the more I look at the other group as a weakness.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:31] And this hurts now because I'm starting to create someone. Ben from Venezuela, the survival kid that walked himself to school that look at pornography at 10 but wasn't a big deal. That was part of the solution. Confidence. Remember the Piropo thing? I will look at a girl, like, hey, I had confidence to talk to girls.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:59] Then I go in Mormonism in Wellen. And I started to feel like my culture is declining. And now, because I want to be more Canadian, something is happening when I'm losing my superpower abilities of my culture where I'm starting to feel like, yeah, I want to be Canadian, but my English still not good enough.

Ben Jalaff [00:39:20] All these guys are from here. They seem settled. And I just feel like, yeah, I'm incorporating myself here, but I'm incorporating myself in a very handicapped way.

Justine Jalaff [00:39:31] You didn't just want to be Canadian, you wanted to be Mormon.

Ben Jalaff [00:39:34] And I wanted to be Mormon. Because now I'm starting to feel like Mormonism gives all those family things that I'm lacking.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:40] Right.

Ben Jalaff [00:39:41] I left my home, my pride. Me familia, John. Okay? Me familia is important to me. And I started to become more of a Mormon, and I started to look at my parents differently. Because now my mom is the enemy.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:03] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:03] Because she's skeptical.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:04] You're always skeptical, Mom. You're not letting my dad progress.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:09] You're holding him back.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:11] Yeah. You're holding my dad back. Mom. I'm starting to create that relationship with my mom that does not work. I'm starting to see my dad being influenced by my mom. My dad's membership starts to be stagnant, and now I'm getting stronger.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:26] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:26] And as I get stronger, my culture gets weakened and my friends. In your mind, my immigrants, I started to make decisions to push them away.

Justine Jalaff [00:40:36] And your new culture is. I'm a Welland guy.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:39] I'm a Welland guy.

Justine Jalaff [00:40:40] Yeah. Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:42] New identity.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:43] My new identity becomes I'm part of the Welland guys, which, again, it worked wonders for me. But I want to separate that from theology, because the theology is what is coming in very slowly.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:59] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:40:59] And, yeah.

Immigrant Life and Mormon Community in Canada

Margi Dehlin [00:41:00] I was gonna say one thing that's really interesting about this dynamic, once you kind of reach Welland, is how for your parents, there's this lack of privilege where they're having to work all the time and they have the case six years. How long did you say that?

Ben Jalaff [00:41:17] We didn't know.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:18] So they're, like, fighting for safety, for kind of basic needs. Safety. Let us belong here in Canada. Let us please be safe. Right.

Ben Jalaff [00:41:25] Meeting with the legal agents constantly and telling us back and forth, well, your case might get rejected, your case might get taken. It was a constant ladder of feelings.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:34] Yes. So it creates this space, though, as a young boy, where your culture used to be in Venezuela, where your family life used to be in Venezuela. There's this space because they're working all the time for the church to come in and fill that space and fill your values and. And fill this. What an ideal. What ideal would look like for you. So it totally makes sense. And it's such a flip from your life in Venezuela, where that. It's just interesting to me that it makes total sense where you end up where you are with an identity of like, I'm a Welland guy.

Ben Jalaff [00:42:12] And this is where the. I don't know if the word malice is appropriate, but that's where I feel like sometimes you have to realize you take such A good group of people. And the church weaponizes it in a way where they're not even doing anything wrong. They're just being human. They're being great friends. They being absolutely lovely people. But when somebody as displaced as I was in Welland, trying to quantify the message of success that the church is giving me, they're giving me a roadmap to be like them. You know, again, it comes back to my dad pressing the button. Like, press this button to get your kids back present. And that's Mormonism for me. Now Mormonism is turning my dad's story into my own. I'm losing my family because they're also this place, but Mormonism is offering me a new one.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:04] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:43:04] And that's where things just become a little difficult.

John Dehlin [00:43:07] You keep mentioning theology. Do you want to tell us what theology? Or did you already tell us?

Ben Jalaff [00:43:11] Yeah, no, I can mention some law. Chastity comes up again.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] Okay.

Ben Jalaff [00:43:15] But now it comes up again with church theology. Talking about, now I feel like I had commit a sin next to murder. Because now, because of the Welling guys, we're all piled up with these things with the law of chastity, and we hear it's next to murder. You need to confess. The teachings that my dad gave me all of a sudden disappear. And now I feel like, holy crap, I've been doing this for so long now.

John Dehlin [00:43:44] Masturbation.

Ben Jalaff [00:43:45] Yeah, it's being normalized. I.

Justine Jalaff [00:43:48] That's a sin.

Ben Jalaff [00:43:49] Yeah. Like, the only time my dad got upset at me because of pornography was, hey, man, can you just buy magazines? Cause you're destroying the laptop. Like, you need to stop downloading these

Justine Jalaff [00:44:01] things later when you were an older teenager.

Ben Jalaff [00:44:02] Yeah. Like, please just do something about this. This is the only time.

Justine Jalaff [00:44:05] Can I answer that question for you? I think, like, so, like, when Ben comes and he enters this Mormon sphere and he enters the youth group, like, what are you taught? You're taught you're the rising generation. You're taught that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and we need to study the Book of Mormon. You're taught that you were a valiant spirit before you came to earth, and that's why you're here in this church today.

Justine Jalaff [00:44:31] You're taught that you have standards that you need to stand by, and you need to be a Christ like example to those outside of your faith. You need to be that light to those around you. And so it's that doctrine, that theology, that for Ben, what he's internalizing is basically, okay, I have all this and I have the light. I have the Christ like light. I have the truth. And all these people that I crossed the border with or that I was forming a community with, they don't have it. And that's what that is.

John Dehlin [00:45:02] So it's kind of a theology of superiority.

Justine Jalaff [00:45:05] Yeah, it's that superiority complex.

Ben Jalaff [00:45:08] Yeah. Because back when I learned in English, I'm not quantifying Joseph Smith yet. I mean, I was baptized, but I didn't know Joseph Smith was a prophet. Come on, who am I kidding? I'm just taking my parents at their value of giving me a good community. I'm just joining because, well, my parents think it's good. So I'm joining. I still don't know about Joseph Smith that much.

Ben Jalaff [00:45:28] I haven't read the Book of Mormon. I'm just looking at face value. It looks like a good product. You know, this doesn't come until much later when I started learning more, but now I'm feeling guilty because now I'm learning that everything that my dad taught me that was normalized is now becoming a sin to me in front of me. So what happens is, like, I'm around the well and guys, and I feel like I'm the only one doing this, the only one staying, and the only one that is not being truthful to even the group. Like, yeah, I'm doing this and how do I go about it?

Margi Dehlin [00:46:02] So it's like that false sense of self emerges, that outer self that you show to them of, like, I'm just like you. Yeah, I'm. I'm just like you. But inside you're having this different experience of knowing. And I do this thing that probably that you said. Yeah, yeah. And if you knew it about me,

Ben Jalaff [00:46:20] it becomes heavy, too, because, I mean, these are years and years of normalizing something, and all of a sudden it becomes a sin. Right. Like, this just happened so quickly. Yeah. Like, it just. I didn't know I was doing wrong. You know, I got caught off guard, like.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:46:38] Whoa. Now, do I have to confess now,

Justine Jalaff [00:46:40] like, I would say Welland is where you got those friendships, and that's when you started internalizing Mormon doctrine, because that's when you were fully active in the church.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:49] Yeah. And the conditioning could really, I think, be strong because your parents were working all the time because they actually, you know, were fighting for your life and their life. It really did allow the perfect situation for that optimal conditioning to kind of happen for you.

Ben Jalaff [00:47:09] Well, absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:10] Yeah.

Family Dynamics and Community Belonging

John Dehlin [00:47:11] Does it make sense to talk about Nicholas?

Ben Jalaff [00:47:13] Yeah. Nick, man. Nicholas became my best friend.

John Dehlin [00:47:25] Was he L.D.S.

Ben Jalaff [00:47:27] not yet. Okay, not yet.

John Dehlin [00:47:29] So he was a non Mormon?

Ben Jalaff [00:47:30] He was a non Mormon. He's the kid that crossed the border with me and my dad, with my family, him and his mom. Okay, okay. And we became. He's. I would say this. He saved me at the refugee home because as a kid I looked at him and we become great friends in this really bad situation. So when he comes into my life from that struggle and comes dwelling with me, he becomes like a brother to me.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] Which country was he from?

Ben Jalaff [00:47:55] Colombia. Okay, Colombia. I will hang out with Nick on the daily. I love him till this day. If I can get a chance to see him again and tell him, I'm so sorry, brother, but I love him. He got me through some tough times, but, you know, the more and more I started to progress with Mormonism, you know, the more I started distancing myself from my immigrant friends. But Nicolas was always strict to my friendship, to the point where I don't remember how this happened. But now the missionaries are teaching him the lessons along with his mom.

Ben Jalaff [00:48:34] And they trusted my parents, you know, Nicolas and Magdalena trusted my parents, and they were taking the lessons and they end up being baptized in the church, which I find that confusing because they're very studious people, Bo. Magdalena and Nicolas, they are studious people. But what had happened is that they joined the church and I think it was a span of two, three weeks. When something happens where they did it backwards, they should have studied these things and then join or not join. But what happened is they join and then they start finding things.

John Dehlin [00:49:10] Do you have any idea what types of things they learned after their baptism?

Margi Dehlin [00:49:13] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:49:15] Magdalena went to my parents house. I remember I came home from school, there was this big fight, and I found Magdalena walking away from the apartment, you know, saying like, you know, they lied to us, they lied to us. And then I go into the house and my dad's like, you know, they found some things about the church about polygamy, and I don't know what they're talking about. Here's my poor dad, doesn't even have a clue what polygamy is. Again. This is what happens when you don't learn. My dad doesn't know. He's defending the church, you know, thinking that, no, there's no such thing as polygamy in the church.

Ben Jalaff [00:49:51] And I hear about it from Nick and we stop talking and he leaves the church within two weeks. And the Welland guys know Nick because he's the one guy that once was there and then disappears. But once I found out what happened. I didn't quantify it either. I didn't know what polygamy was. No one is teaching me anything. That's the very first time I actually heard what that was. And obviously seeing the Wellen guys and seeing the product like, no, Nick is crazy. There's no way we do this here. Look at. Look at my friends. Look at their families. But that hurt a lot when I lost this friendship, which will come back to haunt me later, because it's one of those things where it sits heavy when you start realizing some things.

John Dehlin [00:50:36] Would you say you gave him up as a friend or he gave you up as a friend? Or was it.

Ben Jalaff [00:50:40] It was both. It was both.

Justine Jalaff [00:50:42] I. I think you said his mom told him that they couldn't be with your family.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:48] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:50:48] I think it was Magdalena that said that, you know, Nicholas shouldn't hang out with us anymore.

John Dehlin [00:50:53] And from her perspective, you were. You both had joined a cult.

Ben Jalaff [00:50:58] Yeah. Yeah. And knowing Magdalena, how studious she was, she probably found a lot more than polygamy because this is a woman that studied well, again, when I told you she did it backwards. She should have just done this before. But knowing her and knowing the information now, I guarantee you she probably came with some heavy things and saw my family as probably were culty and.

John Dehlin [00:51:23] Yeah, go ahead, Marie.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:24] I was going to just ask you. It feels like you're having these two really opposing experiences. In one way, you're having this kind of love festival, high conditioning, belonging, group of friends with the Welland kids. Right. And then in the course of that emerging and growing, you're having a real loss of, you know, your history, your culture, people who actually, you know, know something about what it is like to be you in Canada and a close friend as well. So you're having like, the loss of. Were you cognizant of. Of that at the. At this point in the story? Like, as a young, young kid, are you aware of loss? Are you feeling the loss of this group of people? Or was the emerging Mormon kind of self really driving hard where you almost didn't even register, or you weren't even really conscious of what you were losing?

Ben Jalaff [00:52:32] That's a. That's a good question. Yeah. The lost of Nick weigh heavy on me. The lust of the Casabela. And it was more of validation from the church that, well, you know, they don't have the same values. Okay.

Ben Jalaff [00:52:53] For me, when. When I started distancing from them, I saw it as a valiant thing I was doing. I was making the best decision I could make to obtain what I want, which is security. And the Mormon experience, which is the reason why I'm mentioning these people by name, because it's a way of me manning up and realize I hurt them.

Ben Jalaff [00:53:18] And they know this. I talk to them about it. You know, they took me back. But this is something that, to answer your question, the person making those decisions wasn't me. It was the Mormon Ben I had created. At this point, Benjamin from Venezuela took a back seat and Mormon Ben came up and he started driving the car.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:43] That's right.

Ben Jalaff [00:53:43] And when he started driving the car, he just became a very good driver. And I let him. He took off.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:51] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:53:53] What's so hard, and this is just a reflection, is it's not like I look around today in 2025 and see a bunch of, you know, atheists and agnostics volunteering to, like, help immigrant families assimilate in the United States and befriending them and supporting them and helping them succeed. Like it was Mormon families that were doing that in your case. So on the one hand, it takes a high demand religion like Mormonism, apparently, to get people to be as loving and as kind and as supportive as those. Well, in Mormons were to you and your family.

John Dehlin [00:54:34] That's the good news. The bad news is the cost of that is a loss of identity for you. Toxic feelings of superiority, a loss of community. And you have to assimilate into what some would say is kind of a cult mindset. Occult theology, occult ideology, even occult identity. That's the cost to you. So it's helping you while it's, I think you would say, harming you. And it's such a paradox.

Ben Jalaff [00:55:06] Yeah, that's. That's a good way to put it, because to me, it's hard to understand how can this be bad when he's being so good at the same time, my part of my brain is telling me this is phenomenal.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:19] You want it to be one thing.

Ben Jalaff [00:55:20] Yeah. Are you kidding me? Like, I'm alone in the country and all these friends are coming at me with goodwill, you know?

Margi Dehlin [00:55:28] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:28] And you'll see this further on in his story. He holds on to this when he moves to different cities, different wards, when we go to a different province. He holds onto this, well end experience so hard.

John Dehlin [00:55:43] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:44] Because that's for him, that's Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:55:47] And I'll just have to say, just because we're making connections here. And Ben, I don't know if this will even connect with you, but Margi's parents were well educated. Her dad Went to Yale University to get his medical doctor degree. Her mom was a nurse. They were at the Mayo Clinic.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:06] And.

John Dehlin [00:56:07] And they were as attracted to Mormonism for exactly the same reasons. They weren't immigrants speaking a different language from a developing country. They were relatively highly educated people that felt attracted to the church for the exact same reasons in the 70s. So it's not just the developing world, you know, that feels the Mormon appeal sometimes. You know what I mean?

Justine Jalaff [00:56:33] I would say on the surface, Mormonism is very attractive sometimes.

John Dehlin [00:56:36] Yeah, yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:56:36] No, clearly you want to have those family values and that community and.

Ben Jalaff [00:56:41] Yeah, that's why.

Justine Jalaff [00:56:42] Clean cut.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:43] Yes. And it looks. It is. It's so much about what it looks like.

Ben Jalaff [00:56:48] Well, it looked phenomenal, but also what it is.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] It's not just what it looks like in your life. It was what it did for your family.

Ben Jalaff [00:56:55] Yeah. Again, that's the thing that I was trying to explain to my friend a month ago is just like, it's hard to not look positively to that because it was generally a positive thing that they were helping us that way, and the French and all of that. And it's something that will drive. The point is that Mormonism, even with everything that is going on, could just be this beautiful thing like it was once for me, if it wasn't because of what was coming into my brain at the time, giving me a roadmap that shouldn't have never existed. Because these guys are taking theology the same way I am. But they're not making these decisions. They're behaving normally just like normal human beings.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:40] Well, this is their community since birth. And you're just joining it.

Ben Jalaff [00:57:44] Yeah, there you go.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:45] Yeah. And I think sometimes that, you know, what it gives you, what it offers you in the beginning, that sense of community, the relationships you have, the values that you have, that is the vehicle that makes us accept the conditioning which can be so problematic, where the cost all of a sudden becomes much higher than many of us can recognize when we first hop in the vehicle that looks so like it's going to take us there, and it's going to take us there in a way that we really appreciate. And I almost feel like, you know, that's how it succeeds. Well.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:22] Oh, sorry. I say life is very uncertain and life can be very scary. And Mormonism gives you certainty and it gives you that.

John Dehlin [00:58:29] And I'll just say, we'll talk about this at the end. But I'm challenging the idea that if only Mormonism could have all the good without the toxic theology and doctrine I Think it's a toxic quote, toxic doctrine and theology that makes people as committed as they are to then want to do all the good things. And that's. That's you. I don't think you can have one without the other. You can't have people who give their full lives dedicated to the church, to serve in every way they're told without believing that it's all about the celestial kingdom and becoming God someday and you're better than everybody else. I think that all comes hand in hand. But we'll get there. Should we talk about moving to Toronto?

Moving from Welland to London and New Friendships

Ben Jalaff [00:59:11] Is that London?

John Dehlin [00:59:12] To London. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:14] So London, not London, England, London?

Ben Jalaff [00:59:16] No, London, Ontario.

John Dehlin [00:59:17] Okay.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:17] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:18] How old are you here when you moved to London?

Ben Jalaff [00:59:20] I was about 17. Yeah, 17. So I'm.

John Dehlin [00:59:24] So you were strong in the Welland youth program.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:26] So the Welland experience was more of a social thing with me learning English. Okay. That's where my. My English was. Got better. And that's when I started to learn Mormonism a little bit. When I go to London, I'm going with the vision of social like it was in Welling. So when I go to London.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] Your family moved, right?

Ben Jalaff [00:59:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:50] Why'd they move?

Ben Jalaff [00:59:50] My dad got a job, a much better job there. So what happened was I feel like I finally built something in. Well, and here we are moving.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:58] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:59] But then for me, it's just like, well, if I made something good here, I can make good in London.

John Dehlin [01:00:05] Is it a bigger city?

Ben Jalaff [01:00:06] It's a bigger city. Yeah. We're talking about 200,000 now.

John Dehlin [01:00:09] So it's five times bigger.

Ben Jalaff [01:00:11] Yeah. A lot bigger than Wellen. Yeah. So we go to London and we go to church, and there it is, you know, a much bigger group of young men's and young women's program. And within that group, there are clicks.

Ben Jalaff [01:00:26] When I came to Welland, these people received me with such happiness, like. And when I went to London, I just showed up in there, and it wasn't special at all. They just introduced me. I sat there. None of the kids couldn't give a crap who I was. They didn't even ask me afterwards, like, hey, where you come from? Nothing. It just felt so odd and weird.

Ben Jalaff [01:00:51] And then we kept going and going. And after a month, again, my friend's bishop setting the bar very high with bishopric as well, because my parents also disconnected because now the bishopric in London is not the same as the bishopric in Welland.

Ben Jalaff [01:01:07] And when my parents decided to stop going, I just felt like, yeah, not finding anything there that could keep me in that right there is when Ben returns, the other one. He comes back briefly. I had it Don and Margi.

John Dehlin [01:01:26] I had it meaning non Mormon identified, same Kit again.

Ben Jalaff [01:01:31] Comes back because my Mormon me couldn't find himself in London anymore. And then my other one returns, and he returns because, hey, let me drive now. So when you go to high school, I can get you some friends. And I go to high school, a Catholic High School, St. Thomas Aquinas. And I start meeting up all these Colombian guys. And then two friends from Argentina, Brenda and Pamela. They end up moving to London. So now I had discomfort from this group. I push away and they're receiving me again. And we create this beautiful community in London. Okay, my friend that I met, Ivan, like, hey, let's join the football team, Ivan, we don't play football, man. Like, I don't understand the sport.

John Dehlin [01:02:09] So you're talking American football.

Ben Jalaff [01:02:11] American football, not the soccer one? No, and I'm telling you no. But let's do it so we can become popular and make more friends. Not go in, I don't know what football is. I play six seconds. And the coach pulled me out because I didn't understand what was going on. But from that experience, the whole school got to know who I was. Oh, Ben from the football team. I became part of the high school experience. Started to become different than it was in Niagara Falls. Now I feel like the high school knows who I am. Okay, the vice principal knows who I am either. Like it was just such a great thing.

Ben Jalaff [01:02:45] However, let's go back to my parents anxiety because now I'm hanging out with kids that are drinking and then they're doing the bad things. And my parents anxiety. I forgot to mention that my parents also taught me that drinking was bad because if you do it irresponsibly, it could lead to irresponsible decisions. Never once told me about the word wisdom. Told me, hey, don't smoke because that's lead to a lot of cancer, so don't do that.

Ben Jalaff [01:03:12] And so I had that perception of the teachings of my parents that now in London they are seeing that I'm hanging out with all these guys and they're doing that and their anxiety now kicks in that, oh, they want to protect me. So maybe we should go back to church so that he could start hanging out with these guys again that don't drink and don't smoke so that we can save him during the teenage years. And then maybe later, who cares? He can figure out on his own. So we end up going back to church. Didn't work out again, the same thing. He failed again.

Ben Jalaff [01:03:41] They didn't give me any validation. And literally a month after that, the same friend from Welland that knock on my door to welcome into the Welland group comes to London randomly and knocks on my door and just wanted to say hi and see me. And that's where my brain again flips.

Justine Jalaff [01:04:03] Poop.

Ben Jalaff [01:04:04] Oh, real friendships with the Welling guys straight back to Mormonism. Like my brain literally just made that decision right there that, oh, these are the friends.

Justine Jalaff [01:04:16] And God sent them to me.

Ben Jalaff [01:04:17] And God sent them to me. What a blessing. But London still is not working for me. So what I end up doing is I go back to Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:04:25] London Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [01:04:26] Yeah, the war.

Ben Jalaff [01:04:27] The war. So now my Mormon brain is starting to make stupid decisions again to push all my Haskell connections out. I'm doing this again. And now not going to be active in London. I'll be active in Welling. Now I'm going to Welling a lot. I'm traveling a lot to well, and I'm in Welland maybe twice a month. And I don't go to church. So I'm inactive in London. And I mean Welland my membership is so displaced, you wouldn't know where to put me. But as I go back to Welland, my English is better and now theology is becoming more serious because as I'm approaching 18, what comes after that?

John Dehlin [01:05:06] Mission.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:07] Mission.

John Dehlin [01:05:07] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:08] And there it is. That's a fastball.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] And also the porn, masturbation stuff resurfaces.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:16] That hasn't stopped. Okay, I gotta be honest.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] I mean, the guilt and shame around it is what I mean.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:24] It stopped in London 100%. I didn't care. It's just when I started going back to the Mormon me. Then again, I'm starting to feel guilty again with those things. And it gets worse and worse because now they're drilling into my age category that we need to prepare for a mission. The miracle of forgiveness comes up.

John Dehlin [01:05:44] Spencerby Kimmel's book.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:45] Oh, yeah, yeah, in Spanish. You know, I don't remember how it got to my house. My dad had it. And I remember I just picked it up and started reading it because somebody had told me that if you have any issues with masturbation and pornography. Oh, it was a talk. If you have issues with forgiveness and pornography, that book helps. And here I am thinking, trying to save myself without telling anybody. Well, I'm not going to confess, but I'm going to help myself. And I read that book and like, how do I quantify that. Like, the stuff I read, like, am I going to homosexual? I mean, I masturbated a lot.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:22] You know, like just normal teenage amounts.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:24] Normal teenage amounts. And that book is telling me that I have a serious problem. And that book didn't help. It just sent me to anxiety land where it put me at a point where now I went from trying to help myself to hiding because I wouldn't say anything and.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:44] Sorry, you thought you were the only one.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:46] Oh, yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:46] You thought all your. Well and friends weren't doing it.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:48] Yeah, they were all righteous.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:50] Yeah, they were all.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:51] Yeah, well, it comes up later, but yeah, I thought I was alone in this struggle. And I knew that my parents, at this point, they were so disconnected from the church, I couldn't really talk to them because now they are inactive. Okay. And I'm going to Welling a lot. And again, my mom becomes a problem because my mom now is coming up. Gordo, I'm having concerns. You keep going back to Welling.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:14] You don't want to hang out with us. You don't want to hang out with our friends. You don't want to hang out with your Latino friends. That's the first time my mom said, it's like you're losing your culture.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:25] And I remember as a teenager, I'm always right. No, mom, you're. Because they're the righteous friends. Mom, this is what you wanted. You wanted me to be among righteous people. Why are you now rejecting this? You know, it's because, again, my mom's being always being skeptical. And that's when my relationship with my mom started to get really bad, because now I truly feel she's against me.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:47] And my choice is to truly embracing Mormonism, because now I'm starting to think like, I have the truth and you guys are rejecting it. Because now I'm reading the Book of Mormon because I'm getting ready for a mission, you know, and Alma 34 comes up, or I think around Alma 30 to 34, when they talk about if you know the truth, you know, you have to. You know, if you know the truth, you're good, but if you reject it, that's terrible. That's worse.

John Dehlin [01:08:15] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:15] Now I remember thinking about that. Like, I wish I was on the other side when I didn't know anything, so I can just be on the safe side and then make this decision later. But at this point, I felt like I know the truth, cannot reject it. And my parents are rejecting this. And I'm looking at them as like, you're not part of my My. My solution anymore.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:32] Wow, that's really something.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:35] This is religion at its worst when it divides families. Yeah, right?

Ben Jalaff [01:08:39] Yeah. It caused this. And again, the beauty of my parents. Even though I'm doing all of this, they're still welcoming my friends with open arms. They're still receiving them. My friends love my parents. They're so lovely to them. They're still supporting me and all that. They're driving me to Welland. It's a two and a half hour drive. And whenever I ask and whatever, I threw a tantrum. They will drive me. They will drive me to dances, youth conferences. Even when they knew this is turning weird for our own son, they're still doing that for me. And I can still hear the murmur in their room. Hey, Pupi, we need to talk to Gordo. What's happening here? It's like we're losing him. I can hear my mom talking to my dad about that. And here I am in my room, like, they're just rejecting the truth.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:28] Like, wow.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:30] Yeah, it's heavy.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:32] It is heavy.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:34] Well, this is really fascinating. I'm loving this, so thank you so much for sharing. Justine, let's switch to your story a little bit. Let's hear about your Mormon Canadian upbringing is very different than Ben's, right?

Justine's Mormon Upbringing in Canada

Justine Jalaff [01:09:47] Yeah, Very different.

John Dehlin [01:09:48] Yeah. Let's hear some of your story.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:52] I actually was born in London. And how far is London from Toronto? 2 and a half hours.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] Which direction?

Margi Dehlin [01:10:01] Oh, man.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:01] Cardinal points. I think North.

John Dehlin [01:10:03] I don't know. Okay.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:04] We're terrible with Cardinal Points.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:07] Yeah, sorry about that.

John Dehlin [01:10:08] A couple hours from Toronto. Sun Drive.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:10] Ben always drives because. Yeah, I'm really.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:12] I would curious.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:13] Google it.

John Dehlin [01:10:14] Oh, east.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:15] East, East. I remember now. East, East.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:18] Let's see. So I'm the youngest of seven. My dad is a convert to the church. His best friend is my mom's brother. And so through my uncle, my dad converted to the church in his early 20s and ended up serving a mission in France. My mom always had a crush on my dad, but she's a lifelong member and they end up getting married, settling in Ontario, and having seven children.

John Dehlin [01:10:51] Do you know if your mom's ancestors go way back in the States?

Justine Jalaff [01:10:54] Yeah, go back to the States.

John Dehlin [01:10:55] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:56] To the Pioneers.

John Dehlin [01:10:57] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:57] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:57] Yeah. So, yeah, my mom's family goes way back and my dad is a convert, and my dad's mom is from England. She came over to Canada as a war bride. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:09] So

Justine Jalaff [01:11:11] I guess how I would paint my childhood in Mormonism is incredibly positive because I grew up in a very Loving, stable home. And I was the baby of the family. So I was the baby that passed around in sacrament meeting because everyone wanted to hold me.

Justine Jalaff [01:11:31] My parents were always in leadership callings. My dad was a branch president at one point. My mom was really society president, young women's president, primary president, pretty much rotated. The place that she settled in and was most happy in was being young women's president.

Justine Jalaff [01:11:49] And the place my dad settled in and was most happy was being scoutmaster. So they settled in London when they had teenagers, and then I was their baby. And I would say London was their golden years in Mormonism, because London at that time, before Ben's time in London, had a beautiful community as well.

Justine Jalaff [01:12:10] Ontario does Mormon community so well, I think. And, like, they had amazing young women's camps. My mom was a young woman's leader. She was like a second mom to a lot of these girls. She would throw them their surprise 16 birthday parties and just was really involved that way with my older teenagers and their social lives. And my mom and the good friends that she had in London, so served very well. They were always serving people.

Justine Jalaff [01:12:44] And when we eventually moved away from London and my mom came back when Ben and I were living there and married, she had, like, a line of people wanting to say hi to her. Because my family was very loved in London. I would say that was their prime Mormon time and financially as well. Like, my dad had a good job. My mom and dad bought their dream house, and they were gonna raise. Sorry. They were going to raise their family there.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:12] So

Justine Jalaff [01:13:14] then we moved to Niagara Falls when I was 10 because my dad lost his job in London and got a job in Niagara Falls. So we moved to London. And that was incredibly hard for my family, my two older brothers.

Justine Jalaff [01:13:32] So the two brothers that are closest to me in age were teenagers at the time. When we moved to Niagara Falls, it was very, very hard. Them. But it was great for me, and it was great for my sister.

Justine Jalaff [01:13:47] And me and my sister are stimulated very well into Niagara Falls and into the ward. But for everyone else in my family, it was like a culture shock. Because I think it's very interesting. Ontario. I personally have this opinion that every stake has its own culture, and then every ward has its own culture. And definitely the culture of the London stake versus the Hamilton stake was very different.

Justine Jalaff [01:14:15] And the culture of The London ward versus the St David's ward was like, black and white. And so my family had a really hard time living in this ward at the beginning.

John Dehlin [01:14:28] Did you know Ben while you were living in Niagara Falls, because that's near Wellington.

Justine Jalaff [01:14:33] I moved to London when I was 10, so I didn't get to know Ben til I was 14.

John Dehlin [01:14:36] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:14:37] For the youth group.

John Dehlin [01:14:38] And he was living where he was in Wellington. Okay, so you did finally. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:14:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:42] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:14:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:43] And I just. I just googled it. So it looks like. And this doesn't totally matter, but I think it's helpful. I. It looks like London is about two and a half hours southwest of Toronto. So it's like Toronto, this is going to be backwards for people, but it's like Toronto. Niagara Falls is down southeast of Toronto and then London is kind of a couple hours west. And then Detroit's. It looks like Toronto's like right in the middle between Detroit and Toronto. So it's kind of almost like a Y falling on its side to the right.

Justine Jalaff [01:15:17] We lived in the Canada Toronto Mission.

John Dehlin [01:15:19] Yeah. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:15:20] Which president? Monson was mission president over.

John Dehlin [01:15:23] Nice.

Justine Jalaff [01:15:23] That was a big deal. I would paint my childhood as very Mormon, but in the loving, most loving way possible. Family home evenings, Sunday dinners with roast beef, mashed potatoes, Caesar salad. That was my favorite. So I would literally come home from church starving. What is it with parents? Something about cheese makes you hungry. My dad would put on the apron, he'd peel the potatoes, my mom would get the roast out of the oven and then I would just be in heaven because that meal was so good.

John Dehlin [01:15:57] Yeah, that's very Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [01:15:59] Yeah, but definitely Sabbath day holy was. You don't shop, you don't watch tv. Yeah. At that time in my childhood, you don't drink caffeine. Okay, that changed later. Definitely no coffee. Like word wisdom. Very strict. Yeah, just basic Mormon like very common.

Saturday's Warrior Theology and Family Identity

John Dehlin [01:16:30] You mentioned in your outline sort of a Saturday's Warrior theology that permeated your family. Do you want to explain what you mean by that?

Justine Jalaff [01:16:38] Yeah. My older sister does not like that movie because I think over time she, even though she's still active, she's like deconstructed it.

John Dehlin [01:16:46] And for our never Mormons, she'll have to explain.

Justine Jalaff [01:16:48] Okay, so. So it's very interesting how Utah culture still came into our home because of being Mormon, but we lived all the way in Canada. And one of the things that came in was the media. And Saturday Night warriors was a play, I'm assuming in Utah in the 70s. Right. And an album and then it got turned into a movie. And then that movie came into my home and because we didn't really watch TV on Sunday, but we would watch like good feel movies. But we also had our collection of Our church movies. That was part of my regular rotation. I'm the youngest of seven, so I was that girl. I'm sorry, do you want me to explain the movie first?

John Dehlin [01:17:33] So you were Emily in the Flinder family?

Justine Jalaff [01:17:35] Basically, yeah, I was Emily. Like, I so connected with her. I was the one. Because how do I get into this?

John Dehlin [01:17:42] It's basically, you know, in Saturday's Warrior Mormon theology, all these family members live up in heaven as spirits before they come to earth, and they all agree to be in a family before they come to earth as spirits. And so the Flinder family is the main family in Saturday's Warrior. Emily's the youngest, and Emily, you know, there's a point in Saturday's Warrior, and ironically, Margi's dad was in a production of Saturday's Warrior, you know, back after they joined the church in the 70s. But there's this point where the Flinders family's trying to decide whether or not to have that final kid. And I think it's Emily. Right. And because the world is saying zero population, don't have too many kids, but Emily's up there in heaven saying, don't forget your promise, Jimmy. You know, and.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:30] Oh, my God.

Justine Jalaff [01:18:32] I would say the reason I internalize that movie so much is I have to share. Okay. This is where I'm going to struggle emotionally and also to share my story, but also respect my family. So my older sister, she's two years older than me.

Justine Jalaff [01:18:52] She was born very premature. She was born £1 and only had a 10% chance to live. My family believes that it was through priesthood blessings and constant miracles that that she lived. I later learned the medical terminology that she was a fighter. I think she was a fighter. But I grew up learning that it was constant priesthood blessings. And my mom shared this spiritual experience with me that when she was looking at my sister in the NICU fighting for her life and my mom was sitting in a wheelchair, she felt strongly that she would still have another child.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:39] And the reason that my sister was born premature is that she was a twin and my mom miscarried that twin. And the spiritual narrative around that was that I was that twin

John Dehlin [01:19:55] that passed away.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:56] That passed away.

John Dehlin [01:19:56] Your spirit. My spirit was destined to be your sister's twin.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:01] But the twin died, so then the spirit had to come to a subsequent body.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:06] So my spirit went back, just like in that movie they got sent. But then something happened so that the spirit came back. And so. But I was always meant to come and I came two years later.

John Dehlin [01:20:21] And there is a Disabled sister named Pam Flinders in the musical as well.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:27] Yes. And they also connected to that. She was physically disabled. My. My sister because of. At the time, in order to keep her alive, she got a lot of oxygen to her brain, which killed a lot of her brain cells, which further down the line caused her to be mentally disabled. I do want to just say that she is an amazing person, though, and is living her own life.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:51] Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:52] But yeah, so. So I very much internalized that and I felt that I was supposed to be there for her.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:04] Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:21:05] Sorry. I was supposed to. You existed almost like. Well, first of all, that I was supposed to be in this family, but I was also supposed to be there for her.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:16] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:21:17] To help her through this life.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:20] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:21:21] And that there are things about that that I want to share more in my teenage years that was really a struggle for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:29] How old were you? Would you say that you kind of were made aware of or you felt that sense of. I guess it's a, you know, it's a role, a responsibility. Do you remember when you kind of learned that about yourself, that kind of story or framing? Were you very young?

Justine Jalaff [01:21:49] Very young? I just think since I can remember because when we were young, we were best playmates and we played so well together and we were always together and we were like twins. We were like twins because she was behind me physically and mentally, even though I was younger. So we kind of did everything at the same time until when I became a teenager. And then that changed for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:20] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:20] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:22] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:22:23] So your family strongly identified with Saturday's Warrior. Saturday's Warrior also has this notion of exceptionalism of Mormon families are the best families. And just the idea of Saturday's Warrior is Jesus is coming soon. And those who live in the modern age were saved by God for the last days to usher in the second coming of Jesus. And so the same exceptionalism I think that you addressed, Ben, also would have existed in your family.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:56] Oh, yeah. I thought I was a valiant spirit. I thought that I was predestined. I thought I was in this church because I was valiant. I mean, it was ingrained in us in youth, that we were the rising generation, that we were here in the last days, that we were so strong and so spiritual. Like we heard that constantly. We heard that over and over and over in our stake as youth. And so, yeah, I definitely, I think, grew like this self righteous superiority complex. For sure, it didn't affect my friendships as a child, but it affected how I did friendships as a teenager.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:40] Yeah. I think another thing in Saturday's Warrior. That was so effective. And it's a musical and we should just say like the songs are.

Justine Jalaff [01:23:47] Oh, those songs made me cry.

John Dehlin [01:23:49] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:49] Yeah. Is also this idea of Jimmy. It's Jimmy, Right. Who kind of gets lured away.

John Dehlin [01:23:57] The brother, the son. The brother.

Justine Jalaff [01:23:59] And I also had a brother like that.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:00] Yeah. Kind of falls away and has friends outside the faith. It's dealt with in very much a way of like they're a threat.

John Dehlin [01:24:10] Jimmy. Oh, Jimmy, don't listen to them.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:13] Yeah. It's a family fighting and it's really framed as like trying to save a family member because they're out in the world and have friends with and are questions.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:24] So I didn't internalize that as well because I. That was one of my favorite scenes was when they're like rocking out around the car.

John Dehlin [01:24:31] Hey, Flinders. No Flinders. Come on. You got to go fly.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:35] Oh, Jimmy. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:24:37] And so we're laughing, but this is.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:40] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:24:40] I remember when Justine showed me that heavy.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:43] I thought it was real.

Ben Jalaff [01:24:45] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:46] I'm just like. Like a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old girl thinking this is real and it's heavy.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:51] It's heavy for.

Justine Jalaff [01:24:52] Yeah. And so I had that. That complex about people who weren't members of the church. And I'm not living in Utah. I'm living in Ontario, Canada. We. Alberta has a long. A big Mormon population, but Ontario does not. I was like one of the. One of two members in my high school.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:09] So that's like most of the people.

Justine Jalaff [01:25:12] Most of the people who fall in the category in my life were not members.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] Yes.

Justine Jalaff [01:25:17] Yeah. So I think something I do. Okay. So we moved to Niagara Falls and I met my never Mormon best friend, Shannon, and she plays a huge part in my Mormon story. She became my best friend the first day I went to school. She lived around the corner from me. She also became best friends with my sister and she loved my sister and she accepted my sister. And also she found happiness in my home. She found stability and peace in my home. So often more times than not, she was in my home after school almost sometimes three days a week. She would often stay for dinner. And my mom became like a parental. A big figure in her life.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:16] How old were you, by the way,

Justine Jalaff [01:26:18] when you met her? I was 10 in grade five.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:20] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:26:21] Yeah. Okay. So. So, so she. So she was like my really good friend. But at the same time I was in. In the ward where there was also a large group of young women. We had like 30 young women and we were the St. David's girls. And so we had a very large youth group, and I became good friends with girls in this ward as well.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] Is that a school?

Justine Jalaff [01:26:49] St. David's it's the ward. It's like a little town outside of Niagara Falls, and that's where our building was. So we were called the St. David's Ward.

John Dehlin [01:26:56] Got it.

Justine Jalaff [01:26:57] And I really. I really struggled throughout my youth years, feeling completely like it was fine when I was a child, but when I became a teenager, navigating my sister, who was also part of that Mormon community. And it's such a small community, so all ages is coming, are coming together and socializing. And because we're all each other has, we're always with each other.

Justine Jalaff [01:27:30] But me feeling like I couldn't always completely embrace it because I had social anxiety, always bringing my sister along with me. And I had. And I always had her there with me. Needless to say, my sister is very outgoing and also could make friendships on her own, but she just leaned very heavily on me in her social life. And because our social life was all pretty much Mormonism, I was never without her there, and I never felt like I could truly be myself. And then at the same time, I wasn't investing in my high school friends because they didn't have the same standards, and I didn't feel safe around them, and I didn't understand their lives.

Justine Jalaff [01:28:23] And alcohol scared me, and drugs scared me, and sex scared me, so I just didn't invest in them. But then I had to invest in this very limited group of people that I didn't always feel like I connected with. And so I always fell back on Shannon.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Your friend?

Justine Jalaff [01:28:43] My friend.

John Dehlin [01:28:43] Now, was Shannon lds?

Justine Jalaff [01:28:44] No, she's a Nevermore Me.

John Dehlin [01:28:45] Okay. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:46] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:28:47] But I would take her with me to the youth conferences. Sometimes she came to church. Sometimes she would come and hang out with our youth group. And I kind of just like. She was like my comfort zone between the two worlds, right?

Margi Dehlin [01:29:04] Yeah. Like a bridge or almost between. Did she feel like a sister or did she feel like a friend?

Justine Jalaff [01:29:10] She felt like family.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:11] She felt like family.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:12] Yeah. She was more than a friend. She was family. She is family.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:16] Did you try to convert her to the church?

Margi Dehlin [01:29:19] She's like, you betcha.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:20] Oh, yeah. We took her to the Palmyra pageant, and we went and saw the historical sites, and she was, I think, almost 14 and felt something there and said she wanted to be baptized, went back. She's very close to her grandma, who has since passed away. Her grandma always grew up taking her to church. This cute little chapel in this little town, we lived outside of Niagara Falls.

John Dehlin [01:29:48] Not a Mormon church.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:50] No, it was. Yeah, just as. And like, a great pastor, great community. And her. Her grandma and her grandpa were very committed to that church and would take Shannon with them as a little girl. And her grandma got very upset that she was thinking about joining this church and told her, no, you need to stay away there. There are a lot. And so she decided to not join.

John Dehlin [01:30:17] What is a lot? That sounds like a. I don't.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:19] I don't know. Probably just that we follow a lot of rules.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:23] I mean, that's fair.

John Dehlin [01:30:24] No, no, no, I like it. I love it. It's basically like, those Mormons are alive. It's like a Canadian kind way of

Ben Jalaff [01:30:31] saying crazy how much people actually know about Mormonism. Like, it's crazy when it. Once you're on the other side, like, oh, you knew this. I didn't know this.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:39] And I know what was very. At the time nice was the youth group, because we did have an amazing youth group, but her grandma's like, you can find that at high school.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:50] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:50] Right. You don't need to join this.

John Dehlin [01:30:52] So were you disappointed that Shannon didn't join?

Justine Jalaff [01:30:55] I think I was disappointed, yes.

John Dehlin [01:30:57] But it didn't affect your friendship?

Justine Jalaff [01:30:58] Not at all.

John Dehlin [01:30:58] Okay. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:59] No, she just was my buffer.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:01] Right.

Modesty, Chastity, and High School Life

John Dehlin [01:31:02] So you mentioned. And this is in your outline, you mentioned a lot of sort of modesty, law of chastity stuff in those high school years. Is that something you want to talk about? Yeah, because that's important. Your story.

Justine Jalaff [01:31:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:13] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:31:15] The ward that we moved into was very hyper vigilant about modesty.

John Dehlin [01:31:21] Meaning.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:22] Yeah. What did that look like?

Justine Jalaff [01:31:24] Meaning you don't wear tank tops. You show up to activities in a T shirt, or you're gonna get sent home. Or someone's gonna give you a sweater.

John Dehlin [01:31:30] Sleeves, all with sleeves.

Justine Jalaff [01:31:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:32] Right. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:31:33] You go to you. Or our steak was too. Our steak had the box with the sweaters.

John Dehlin [01:31:37] What does that mean?

Justine Jalaff [01:31:38] So when you show up to a dance, if you're not modestly dressed or you even have something inappropriately graphic on your T shirt, like a graphic tee, that's not appropriate, they'll get, like, a piece of clothing from the box and give it to you to wear at

John Dehlin [01:31:51] the dance, and that's if any chest cleavage is showing or shoulders. Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:31:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:57] Which is bizarre because just like last week or the week before, the Mormon Church has announced new garments that allow women to show their shoulders.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:05] Yeah. And I think a lot of millennials, such as myself, are having a really hard time with that. Because we grew up in the modest is hottest era. So that was Utah culture coming to my. To me as well. And like, that merch that, like, you could get, it was so exciting. We could go to the Palmyra pageant and you could go to the bookstore and you could buy a T shirt that said Mormon girl or modest is hottest. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:28] Did you ever have to wear anything from the modesty box or whatever it was called?

Justine Jalaff [01:32:31] No, because I knew how to be modest.

John Dehlin [01:32:33] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:33] I was very good at it.

John Dehlin [01:32:35] But that was very shaming if you had to wear something from the modesty box.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:38] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:38] I remember one time my sister, who I was obviously very protective of, it was like a glow in the dark dance or something. And she was wearing a white long skirt. And someone came up to her telling her it was see through, and she had to go get changed. And I got very upset.

John Dehlin [01:32:52] She had to wear something from the modesty box or go.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:55] It was at a conference, so she would have to go and get changed. And I told them, no, she's not getting changed. It's modest. I think that. And I could tell that leader was very uncomfortable. But yeah. So there is one story, like I was so modest that I specifically picked out a bathing suit that was a tankini. So it was a two piece, but it was more modest than a one piece. So it was like a tank top tankini with a cute skirt.

Justine Jalaff [01:33:26] And I wore it to young women's camp. And my mom was young women's president at the time. And although my mom definitely encouraged the modesty, like her, one counselor was very vocal about that. I was wearing a two piece and my mom had to take her on a two hour conversation to kind of bring her down and tell her, no, you can't approach her and tell her to go get dressed.

John Dehlin [01:33:49] I'm guessing the amount of belly that it showed would be so minimal.

Justine Jalaff [01:33:52] I didn't show any.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:53] I was going to say there are a lot of. None. There are a lot of tankinis where you died.

Justine Jalaff [01:33:58] It was just a two piece.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:59] Literally, it's in two pieces.

John Dehlin [01:34:00] And the bellies are bad anyway. But it would have been. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:04] And I felt like, yes, that amount

Margi Dehlin [01:34:06] of attention, focus, very vigilant.

John Dehlin [01:34:09] So if somebody were to just play devil's advocate and say, hey, what's wrong with teaching, you know, women? Marty's already laughing at me. But I want to explain it to the never Mormons. If somebody were to say, what's wrong with teaching you to respect your bodies and to not be too revealing, Bodies are Sacred. Whatever the justification was, explain why. There's a dark side to it.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:34] The difference is that I was taught that I was dressing modestly to help keep priesthood holders worthy.

John Dehlin [01:34:38] Men, Mormon boys, basically, so that they

Justine Jalaff [01:34:42] didn't look at me and want to masturbate.

John Dehlin [01:34:44] And I know this is weird, but why is that harmful to you? Or was it harmful to you or to women?

Justine Jalaff [01:34:49] Well, it's the whole purity culture thing. First of all, I didn't even know what masturbation was. Like, I was so sexually naive. Like, I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was how it worked. Like, you know what happened. That was my conversation given to me. But other than that, I. I just stayed so far away from it that I didn't know anything about it. But I was also taught at the same time, you need to be modest because you need to help these. These priesthood holders stay worthy. And that's as far as it went for me. I never questioned further past that. I was just taught, okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:35:27] And also the other thing for me, and this is why millennials are having a hard time with the garment, is I was taught we need to keep our closet garment friendly for when eventually we do go to the temple. Which meant wearing sleeves and clothes past the knee.

John Dehlin [01:35:42] And how did that harm you? What if somebody says, what's wrong with that? You dress, you had, you wore sleeves.

Justine Jalaff [01:35:48] I honestly, as a teenager, I'm not sure it harmed me too much because you could still find really cute clothes that were modest. It did harm me and that I didn't want to go to my prom because a lot of people in Utah, you have stores where you can buy modest prom dresses, but in Ontario, you have to order it from the States. It was like $300 to $400. And then I'd be showing up to my prom in like a princess dress when everyone else is wearing, like, strapless. So I just chose not to go to my prom, and I went to my seminary grad instead that night.

Margi Dehlin [01:36:31] Yeah, I mean, I want to just say a couple things. We could do a whole thing about this, about how it can be damaging. But I'll say, I think it's an introduction into this psychological area where women are responsible for men for what men feel or other people's experiences. And that can bleed over into a lot of just unhealthy behaviors. It can turn to abuse. It can turn. But it's this introduction of, like, I'm responsible in some way for what you feeling, and you. Someone else gets the pass.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:07] And I will always Be responsible for it. I think it's an introduction to that. I also think it's sort of an introduction to assessment that your body actually is free to discuss by people around you, people in authority. And it creates this dissociative experience of what it feels like to feel good in your body, to feel good and close, to actually have this inside out relationship at a time that I think is already very vulnerable. Cause your body is changing. A lot of times you don't have control over how big your breasts, what they. Sometimes you're slow to even recognize when you need a bra.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:49] Like, it's just So I think those are a couple things I would just start with that I've noticed for women who are adults now and have left the church, they are still. It is something that still comes up for them. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:05] I feel the harm more as an adult now.

John Dehlin [01:38:08] Oh, wow.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:09] Than I just deconstructing it in learning what purity culture actually is. And when I had to wear the garment, it took me a really long time to not enjoy the garment. But at that point I was starting to be like, but why can't I wear this cute summer outfit? But I think how it harmed me as a young girl is that it made me naive. And I have to say I was just lucky in Mormonism that I was surrounded by good people, that I didn't have anyone that tried to take advantage of me being naive. I just had good people who were trying to do their best. I had good men and good men leaders. So I got lucky in Mormonism, I think, because if something would have happened to me, I would not have known what was happening.

John Dehlin [01:39:00] You would have been vulnerable to an abuser, basically, yeah. And there are plenty of abusers everywhere, but in Mormonism too. So you just kind of lucked out in that.

Justine Jalaff [01:39:08] I lucked out in Mormonism, yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:11] I would also, you know, going back to Ben's discussion about being racked with guilt that he had committed the sin next to murder many, many times, I would imagine it might be a lot, as a young Mormon woman to carry around the idea that you could be the cause of. Of young men committing the sin next to murder.

Justine Jalaff [01:39:34] I don't know if I even carried around guilt. I was just hyper focused on the checklist. So, like, I liked to go to my room and I would take my journal and I would take my Strength for Youth pamphlet and I would play church music and this was like my downtime in my room and I would reread the Strength for Youth pamphlet and go check, check Check, check, check. I'm good, right?

Margi Dehlin [01:39:58] It's like almost. And I think you said this earlier, feeling afraid of alcohol, afraid of sex, afraid of. And I hear in that kind of stay safe. It was here, safe and valued. I'm more valuable with the checklist.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:13] And I got a lot of value being a checklist girl. I got a lot of validation. I was told, constantly praised by my leaders, constantly compared to even their own daughters, that why can't you be more like just.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:27] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:27] I was told I was the perfect ending to my family. I was told I was so Christlike because of how I was like with my sister. Completely validated. But at the same time, I was just doing everything I was told I needed to do to be good. Never questioning it and never trying to understand why I needed to do that.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:56] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:58] I'm just, just like we talked about with you, Ben, about the good things that Mormonism brought your family as immigrants to Canada, but the harmful things. Right. I could see somebody saying, well, maybe Mormonism helped keep you out of trouble in some ways, Justine. And the dark side is, is what you brought with you in terms of body shame.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:19] And I think Mormonism made me feel very safe. My family was very safe. But here's the thing. I think Mormonism, when you're raised in a really good, loving Mormon home, it is very safe. But as I talked to my friend Shannon about this, but then it doesn't prepare you for the real world.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:41] And I started seeing the harm when I moved away from home and started going to university and entered the real world world. And I wasn't able to make friendships or relationships like I chose. I chose to move away to go to a school just an hour and a half away from my home and live in residence because my older sister had lived there and she, she did the residence thing and she made good non member friends and she roomed with non member friends that she's still really good friends with today. And she was able to do that. And I thought, I can do that too.

Justine Jalaff [01:42:20] And then I went and I couldn't do it. I was the weird religious girl on the floor. I had someone reach out to me to try and invite me to a kegger and I immediately clamped up in fear and told her, oh, that's not for me. And then we didn't become friends.

Justine Jalaff [01:42:41] I tried to meet with a group of girls in one of our dorm rooms to try and be outgoing and get to know people. And the minute they found out I was Mormon, because it had come out somehow before in front of a whole group of strangers. I was asked what the garment was because they had known someone who was Mormon and they knew about the garments. And so I had to explain in front of a whole room of people what the garment was basically about.

John Dehlin [01:43:05] Your underwear.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:06] Yeah. But I wasn't even endowed.

Margi Dehlin [01:43:08] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:09] And then. And because I didn't drink, I just couldn't build friendships because I just. You can choose not to drink, but you. But you maybe aren't afraid of those social settings as a never Mormon. Like, you can be a never Mormon who chooses not to drink, but you're not afraid of the social settings. It's just your choice. I was like, no, I can't go. This is not good for me. I was very much carried forth with fear.

Margi Dehlin [01:43:36] And I think that's reinforced in Mormonism too, when they talk about, like, if you're at a party and you're holding a cup, even if you're not drinking, but you're with drinking people. The appearance of evil.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:47] Yeah. And you can be tempted to the

Margi Dehlin [01:43:49] evil itself or staying away. We always had those lessons of, like, are you gonna go? How close to the edge do you go to evil? Like, really valiant people stay far, far away from that gray area of. So you're really reinforced as being more valiant, more spiritual, I think, and it separates you.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:11] But the thing is that it was the same thing with high school. I didn't invest in my high school friends, but I didn't feel like I fit in with the Mormon group quite so much. And so I sat in the middle with my safe, non Mormon friend who understood me and my family and my sister. But then I go to university and she's not there anymore. And I don't fit in with the YSA branch there because I don't have a car and I can't drive to all the activities. And the branch is like 30 minutes away. A mission couple has to come and pick me up every Sunday so I can go to church. And so I'm not, like, really feeling it with the branch. But then I'm not investing in the group at school. And so I'm just constantly never feeling like I fit in anywhere socially.

John Dehlin [01:45:01] Why didn't you go to byu? I'm just curious.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:03] No. Okay. So I grew up.

John Dehlin [01:45:07] Don't just say no. What are you talking about? That's what every Mormon kid does.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:11] Utah did not have a good reputation in my upbringing for education or for anything.

John Dehlin [01:45:18] Oh, what's wrong with Utah and your upbringing?

Justine Jalaff [01:45:22] It's like, Utah's weird. Everyone There is blonde.

John Dehlin [01:45:28] You're blonde.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:29] This is dyed. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:45:36] I'm just teasing you a little bit.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:37] It's more cultural and we're more spiritual here because we have to be type thing.

John Dehlin [01:45:42] More spiritual.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:43] Because you're more of a minority.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:44] Yeah, we're more of a minority.

John Dehlin [01:45:45] Yeah. Did they use the term the mission field where you were?

Justine Jalaff [01:45:48] I never heard that term until I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [01:45:50] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:50] But we had stronger, more deeper testimonies because we had to have these testimonies and in order to stand strong.

John Dehlin [01:46:01] So Utah was the place where the Mormons were weaker.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:46:04] Where you grew up?

Justine Jalaff [01:46:05] Yeah, in Canada, definitely. And had a weird culture. That changed for me when I went on my mission, by the way, I don't.

John Dehlin [01:46:15] Well, you stopped looking at Utah's weird.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:17] I just had really nice Utah companions. And then I was like, oh, they're not all blonde. None of them were black. Anyways, I did not want to go to byu, but Alberta is the Canadian byu. Southern Alberta for Ontarians.

John Dehlin [01:46:31] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:32] So many Ontario people go to Alberta for school.

John Dehlin [01:46:35] That's where you went? Southern Alberta.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:37] So after this year at university where I didn't do well socially and I was very alone and I dated a non member and that was a very lonely experience for me. I decided and I originally did want to go to Alberta because my brothers were already there, but I withheld going because of my sister and I wanted to stay close to her. But I did have a. I did eventually end up crying on the phone to my mom and she told me just, you need to go and live your life and do what you need to do. So I did move out to Alberta. I didn't know my roommates and I had this glorious vision in my mind that I would make these amazing friends and I would finally live this Mormon dream in Alberta. And it didn't really. That didn't really work out that way for me.

John Dehlin [01:47:27] Was this Lethbridge or.

Justine Jalaff [01:47:28] I went to Edmonton because my brothers were in Edmonton at the time and one of my good friends growing up was in Edmonton as well. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:36] You mentioned in your outline an experience, and I'm only mentioning this because you mentioned it. An experience you had making out that led you to some guilt. Did you want to tell that story?

Justine Jalaff [01:47:46] Yes, I do. Yes. I think with me you'll have to use the outline a lot. So when I was at school for the first time, I got my first boyfriend. So I never dated before that. I had never kissed a boy either. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:04] So you reached college as A Mormon girl. Have you never kissed a boy?

Justine Jalaff [01:48:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:07] Okay. And you're still in Ontario at this point? Yes, in college.

Justine Jalaff [01:48:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:13] Are you near Niagara Falls? Is that college?

Justine Jalaff [01:48:15] It's in Kitchener.

John Dehlin [01:48:16] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:48:17] And it's an hour and a half away from Niagara Falls and an hour away from London and an hour and a half from Toronto. So the thing is, it's like, maybe I'll gonna back up a little bit into my teenage years. I never felt super attractive in Mormonism because none of the boys ever liked me. I had boys in my high school like me, but the minute they found out I was Mormon through my friends, they stopped liking me. So I never really got that in high school, I guess because I carried that Mormon label really well. So everyone knew I was Mormon. And then in our youth group, none of the boys that I liked liked me, except for this one over here. He really liked me, but I. I didn't like him.

Ben Jalaff [01:49:10] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [01:49:11] At the time. And we might back up into that. But so. So I didn't feel attractive in. In Mormonism, and I didn't. I couldn't understand why. And then. And then with my friend Shannon, when I was like, 17 and we were in grade 12, I started hanging out with more of her and her school friends, and they. A bunch of them had a crush on me, which was so new to me, but they knew through Shannon that I was Mormon, so they never tried anything. But if, according to Shannon, if I had not had been Mormon, they for sure would have gone and done something about that. So that never really happened for me. For some reason, in the Mormon bubble, I was not that girl. And I had friends who were that girl. Yeah, all the guys liked those particular friends over and over and over.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:06] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:08] So I go to university and I've never had a boyfriend. I've never kissed anyone. And I just want a boyfriend. Like, I just want that experience. And somehow I end up connecting with this guy who, looking back, I don't know why, and we end up dating, and I end up having my first kiss with him. And we. And he was Catholic, and so he kind of understood that. He knew he himself did not want to have sex before marriage.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:35] He had made that goal for himself, or at least that's what he told me. And so we had that in common. And I talked to him about the church, and I shared with him the Strength for Youth pamphlet.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:49] But, you know, you just. You're by yourself in a dorm room watching a movie on your laptop in your bed, and you start making out. And that was the first time that I had ever made out with a

Ben Jalaff [01:51:00] boy,

Justine Jalaff [01:51:02] that I had like, ever done anything like take off my shirt while making up with a boy. And it never really got further than that except for, like things over the clothes. And then I remember not necessarily feeling bad about it, but then at the same time saying like, oh, I guess I can make mistakes. Because I had that superiority complex. Even among my Mormon friends, I thought I was more righteous than them.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:31] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:31] Because they were out kissing boys and making out with boys and meeting with bishops and doing all that stuff and trying to push the boundaries and dress immodestly. And I never did that. And so I thought I was just a better Mormon than them. And then I go and do this with this non member boy and I'm like, oh, I guess I can make mistakes. And then that led me to the first time when we finally broke up, feeling like I needed to repent and meet with a bishop. And so since I wasn't connected to the YSA branch at the time, I went to my home ward and met with the bishop there. And like I said, I was very lucky to be surrounded by very good people.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:12] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:52:13] Because the way he handled it, I was like so nervous. I was like sitting on my fingers shaking, not wanting to tell him. And I hadn't even done anything that bad.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:25] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:52:25] And he didn't ask questions, he didn't probe. He just said, you're good. You can keep taking the sacrament and you're good. And then he came out of that interview and then went on to praise me to my parents. You have such a wonderful daughter. You have such a good daughter. And so I felt like that was a beautiful repentance process. And then I moved to Alberta and I started dating a priesthood holder returned missionary, which was such a contrast. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:57] You mentioned. And I'm only, again, I'm only mentioning this because it was in your outline. I just want to make sure you don't miss anything. You mentioned during, during one of the times, I guess you're making out, feeling some guilt because you had an experience that you had never experienced before. Did you want to talk about that? Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:14] Yes. I was so naive, like I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't understand that I was like, what I was doing to this guy. And that there was a point where I, like, we were just like, they call it dry grinding.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:30] Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:31] Where it's over the clothes. And I can say that because that's the term my bishop used when he was trying to figure out What I did.

John Dehlin [01:53:37] And we call it dry humping, but you call it dry grinding.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:39] Maybe the same thing.

John Dehlin [01:53:40] No, it is. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:41] Yeah. Dry humping. Dry grinding, where you're just like, you still have your clothes on and. Yeah. And like he had, like, he came in his clothes and I didn't know what was happening.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:56] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:57] And I just. It's like my mind just went into, like, protection. We're just not going to think about that and we're just going to move on. And that happened. And the end.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:10] Yeah. Kind of compartmentalize it.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:12] And I never felt that much. So we're just going to keep going here. I don't. I so naive. I just someone, some ex Mormon influencer that I follow talked about her being sexually neglected.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:29] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:30] I felt like I had been sexually neglected in my sex education.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:35] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:36] Because of, I think, the culture of my ward and how hyper vigilant they were about modesty and keeping the law of chastity and keeping yourselves pure for the temple and for marriage.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:50] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:51] That was the only focus and the only conversations. And we didn't talk about what it would happen if we actually did have sex.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:59] Yes. So that's right.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:02] And then I went to Alberta and like I said, because I've heard stories about girls. Like, you did that panel where all those girls were dating at BYU and how they did not have pleasant experiences. Sometimes, like I said, I got very lucky in that I dated really respectable guys. And so I dated this RM and we dated for eight months. And it was like night and day compared to my other relationship. And I was like, see, this is what it's like to date a priesthood holder. Someone who knows that the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight. Someone who knows that we can only kiss while standing up. Like, someone as vigilant as me. Like, this is how you. And like we held hands and we have fun dancing at the dances and we can do all the social things. And this is awesome.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:58] Yeah, I see.

John Dehlin [01:55:59] Yeah. Why did you just grunt, Ben? I just heard a groan.

Ben Jalaff [01:56:05] You know, this is a part where sometimes I had to sit with myself and just. Which is poisonous to me because I overanalyze things to the point where she's telling that story of safety and stuff. And again, I don't want to say too much because I want her to keep going, but it's just having opportunities placed in front of you and just overanalyzing things that are so simple as, like, courting a girl normally, you know, everything was so demonized.

John Dehlin [01:56:39] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:56:39] There's so much danger like, what I did with that first boyfriend was totally normal and I should not have felt like I needed to repent.

Ben Jalaff [01:56:46] Everything is so demonized. Like, I mean, yeah, I see friends from my country dating girls and having platonic great experiences. And here I am. The only way I go on a date, if somebody else tags along and you go double dating and you don't even have a chance to really explore personalities or do something to get to know yourself and your confidence level. I mean, coming again, I don't want to.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:12] Well, that's more your story and we'll come to that.

Ben Jalaff [01:57:14] Yeah, no, but it's the thing though. Like, anyways. Yeah, I don't. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:18] When you're talking about being so terrified to talk to the bishop that you're sitting on your hands and you're shaking, that's almost trauma for behavior. That's super benign and normal.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:30] Yeah. But it was also behavior I didn't know anything about.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:33] Exactly.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:34] Yeah. But I was just. I knew it was wrong.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] Yeah. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:37] So then I go, yeah. And I go and I, I date this guy in Alberta. And it was a very positive experience. But I always knew I was going to serve a mission. So great.

Justine's College Years and Future Vision

John Dehlin [01:57:50] As you were going really quickly before we maybe jump back to Ben, as you were in college, what was your vision for yourself, for why you were going to college, what you were going to college for and what would happen in your life?

Justine Jalaff [01:58:04] There was like this internal desire in me to, to be like my older siblings. Like, I would follow my older siblings successes and then think I can do that too, or I want to do that too. So I saw my older sister go away and be able to balance both of those worlds. And I was like, I want to do that too. Because I felt, I felt a lot of resentment.

Justine Jalaff [01:58:29] Like I would see my friend Shannon and she's an incredible person and no one was telling her what she needed to do to be good. She was just being good. And she made friendships like this and was like building this amazing high school community. She went to a different high school, by the way, and making friends and having all these great social experiences. Experiences. And here I am like reading a book by myself in the library while I'm eating my lunch because I feel so lonely.

Justine Jalaff [01:58:59] It wasn't like that every day, but I sometimes found myself doing that. And I was like, why is it that I have to do all these things that the church is telling me I need to do? I have to dress modestly. I have to be the Christ, like example. I have to follow the Strength for youth pamphlet. And she can just go. Go and be.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:20] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:21] And I wanted that for myself, but at the same time I didn't know how to get it while being Mormon.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:28] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:29] And so I tried that first year and I failed.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:34] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:34] And I was miserable and I was weird. So I went to. I moved. My therapist tells it how I was the big fish in the little pond. I was very comfortable in Mormonism and it validated me in a lot of ways. But then I was trying to go out into the bigger pond where I was a little fish in the bigger pond. And so what did I do? Because I didn't have those life skills to face society, I go to a. Just a bigger Mormon bubble where I can be the fish. Big fish in the little pond again.

John Dehlin [02:00:08] In a bigger pond. Slightly bigger pond.

Justine Jalaff [02:00:10] Slightly bigger. Slightly bigger pond with more options. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:00:14] And did you envision yourself, did you go to college so that you could have a thriving career as a working mom?

Justine Jalaff [02:00:20] No.

John Dehlin [02:00:21] No. What was it?

Justine Jalaff [02:00:22] So I always grew up with the mentality that I need to get a degree so that if anything were to happen to my husband, I could go back to school and get a job.

John Dehlin [02:00:37] So what type of degree would that be?

Justine Jalaff [02:00:39] So I ended up English was my best subject and history was my favorite, one of my favorite subjects. So I went and majored in English and minored in history with the idea that after my kids are grown, I will go to teachers college and become an English and history teacher, which I'm now there. And it's not as easy to do that as I thought.

John Dehlin [02:01:02] But you. But you were going to get your degree but then just have lots of babies.

Justine Jalaff [02:01:05] Yep. I was going to find a white Mormon man. I have to emphasize that because I married a person of color who was going to be like an engineer and would make good money and I would stay home and be a stay at home mom.

John Dehlin [02:01:20] And were you taught the white part by the Mormon Church?

Justine Jalaff [02:01:23] No, that's just who I envisioned in my mind because. And this will play in Ben's story later. So like, I don't want to get too much into it, but like Ben had a huge crush on me when we were teenagers and he just didn't fit that Mormon mold that I was told to want in a Mormon man, which was clean shaven, honestly white.

Justine Jalaff [02:01:54] That's just what I had in my mind. And someone that took life seriously so that they could go and get a really good career. And so I never envisioned myself working because I was told very much so the message, the Most noblest thing that you will ever do is to raise, be a mother. And the best work you'll ever do is within the walls of your own home. And that you need to be a stay at home mom at whatever cost, because that is the greatest blessing that you can give to your children. And daycare was kind of demonized for me. You don't put your kid in daycare.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:34] You.

Justine Jalaff [02:02:34] You stay home. That's the best thing for your babies.

Ben Jalaff [02:02:38] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:40] So we'll come back. I think that theme's gonna reemerge. But we never. We never heard about you liking Justine. What's up with that? Wait, should we. I mean, so in high school.

Ben Jalaff [02:02:51] No, actually, when I. When I lived in Welland again before I really took off and. Well, and I went to a dance. This is my first dance ever. And I don't like flashy girls. I just like girls with natural beauty, you know, that don't try hard, because to me, that's what's most important, the natural. Naturality. Is that a word? Naturality?

Justine Jalaff [02:03:15] Natural.

John Dehlin [02:03:16] I like it.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:17] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:03:17] Yeah. And for me, when I saw Justine, I just.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:21] Her.

Ben Jalaff [02:03:22] Just her not trying very hard. And that's what I was attracted to. Everybody else was going for the same other girls, and I just feel like. But I like. I like this one. She seems nicer. And I also felt like she's harder to get because she has this strong Mormon personality. Something I'd never.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:44] Well, I wasn't a flirt.

Ben Jalaff [02:03:45] She wasn't a flirt. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:47] And so going back to this war, these girls who were also the ones who had the boys liking them over and over, they would go before every Mormon dance and get their hair done. Like at a hair salon. Yeah. And they would go and they would buy a new dress and they would do their makeup and show up like the bee's knees.

Ben Jalaff [02:04:09] That's what I meant.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:10] Like, their lives depended on their lives. They kind of did.

Justine Jalaff [02:04:14] Yeah. And for me, I came from a family that was like, no, you just show up in a jean skirt and a ponytail and you go, have fun. And we took a lot. Like, there was a lot of pride in that in my family. And so that's what I did. But I also didn't know how to do makeup nice either. So,

Ben and Justine's Early Relationship

John Dehlin [02:04:36] Ben, did you try and dance with Justine or even try and get her to like you kind of thing?

Ben Jalaff [02:04:41] No. And it goes back to my level of confidence being dead at this point. This is a point where I'm not myself at all. You know, I'm not very confident at this point in Mormonism, I mean, Justine said that she was going for the white guy, right? In girls in Mormonism, especially in Ontario, almost feels like the Hunger Games, you know, I just felt like the lower tiered. You know, my English is not great. I'm from another country. I don't have a status, and all my friends speak English. They're well versed in the scriptures, well versed in the gospel. I'm not well versed at all.

Justine Jalaff [02:05:19] You also had a beard at 50.

Ben Jalaff [02:05:20] Yeah, I had. Bearded way too early, so I had facial hair. I looked like a leader, you know, it was one of those things where I just felt so inadequate for me to feel like I could thrive in this.

Ben Jalaff [02:05:32] In this social bubble. And also, again, I didn't have that kick that I could just go confidently and ask Justine to dance something simple as just asking her for a dance was a challenge for me, which is something. I don't know why that was happening, because I hear stories from my parents and my friends from Venezuela that will tell me, man, you were confident before and what happened again. You're in a small bubble and you feel like you had no tools to succeed. And for me, I felt it from Justine and I felt it from these other girls. I felt the expectation. You know, I'm a good Mormon boy. I'm not. I'm not material Mormon. It's material.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:16] I fully accept that.

John Dehlin [02:06:17] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:18] I saw Ben and I found out he liked me, and I was weirded out by it.

John Dehlin [02:06:25] And one of the darkest parts about Mormonism is up until recently, the church taught for 250 years, or 150 years, whatever it is, that people shouldn't date or marry interracially.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:37] Yeah, that's.

John Dehlin [02:06:38] That was explicitly taught to me. And it was. It was in church curriculum up until a year or two ago. If it's not still there, that you should only date people in your race.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:48] It was not explicitly taught to me, but it's embedded in the doctrine, you know, so he's. He was. He's a Lamanite, like, right?

John Dehlin [02:06:57] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:57] Like, as bad as that sounds like I was taught that every person from South America and every indigenous person is a Lamanite.

John Dehlin [02:07:07] And in the Book of Mormon, Lamanites were cursed with dark skin for the wickedness of their ancestors.

Justine Jalaff [02:07:13] Yeah. And I never thought that about him ever. But it's just like. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:07:17] I think water you swim in, it's

Justine Jalaff [02:07:20] just the internalization of it all. And then. And then just the ex. And then. And then, as a Girl, you know, you're taught to dream about who you're going to marry. You even make a list as to like, how what's your husband going to be like? And if that person doesn't fit that, then I ain't paying attention to you.

John Dehlin [02:07:40] Yeah,

Ben Jalaff [02:07:43] yeah. That's the part of my story where I. This is when things get. This is when I just become very uneasy about myself is.

Justine Jalaff [02:08:03] How.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:05] How was I. The way the person I created could not pull anything in the realm I put myself in. You know, this is something I'm wrestling with now. It's just what happened, you know, why did I lost so much value within myself when I had it? You know, my friends from the other group brought me up. Same with the Welling guys. They brought me up, but again, it's all of a sudden internalizing Mormonism and seeing the product in front of me thinking I don't meet that criteria. So how do I put myself in there? That's why I decided to go faster with Mormonism. Because if I'm gonna scoop a girl like Justine, well, I need to become more Mormon. I need to get more serious about this. I need to shave, I need to start parting my hair and I need to start changing.

Justine Jalaff [02:08:59] He lost of weight too.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:00] I lost a lot of weight cuz I was also self conscious about the fact that I'm also a little bit overweight, man. Like I was just trying so hard for somebody in the bubble to tell me I'm a good looking dude.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:13] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:14] And for me, as sad as that sounds, until I married Justine, it was very difficult to have a Mormon girl to tell me I was good looking. And that was really painful. Especially in the youth program where you have very limited choices.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:30] Yeah, that's right.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:31] And you have like five, six girls and four of your friends already like them. And you're like, take a step up because they're better looking, they're better in Mormonism. And then you don't even take a shot.

Justine Jalaff [02:09:44] Yeah, right.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:45] And you have that. It sounds like you vary in different ways, like there are differences, but you have that in common. That neither one of you felt particularly chosen or attractive to people in your church kind of group. Is that right?

Justine Jalaff [02:10:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:01] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:02] Interesting.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:02] I didn't have.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:04] But we didn't choose each other at that time.

John Dehlin [02:10:06] No.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:06] In fact, Justine wrote me a very nice email turning me down in a very nice way, telling me, no, let's

Justine Jalaff [02:10:12] just be friends, let's just be friends.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:15] I remember. I wish I had that email still.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:17] And I really wanted to be Ben's friend. Because everyone was Ben's friend. He didn't have a lot of, like, 16, 17, 18. He didn't have a lot of confidence with, like, girls and going after girls, but he had so many friends. Everyone loved Ben.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:32] So he made it known to you that he wanted to date you?

Justine Jalaff [02:10:35] Yeah, he sent me an email letting me know that he liked me, and then I sent him an email back telling him, let's be friends. And then from that point, we actually did start becoming friends.

John Dehlin [02:10:50] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:51] Because before, we wouldn't even talk to each other. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:10:54] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:55] We were in the same youth group with the same friends, and we would be around each other, not acknowledging each other.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:01] I see.

John Dehlin [02:11:03] So an idea came to me that's gonna sound really shocking to Mormon ears, but I think it's factually true. There is an element of white supremacy in Mormonism because darkness, dark skin, is doctrinally equated with evil or wickedness in Mormonism. It's just a fact. It's in every piece of scripture that Joseph Smith produced. The Book of Mormon, Lamanites are cursed with dark skin because of their wickedness. And then in the Doctrine and Covenants, in the book of Moses, in the book of Abraham, and in the book Doctrine and Covenants, all of the scripture that Joseph Smith produced has this idea of the curse of Cain and of Cain getting dark skin as a curse for his evil, and the descendants of Cain carrying the curse of Cain.

John Dehlin [02:11:58] So, you know, your no to Ben had to have been at least partially a result of. Of these white supremacist teachings that maybe you didn't ever receive explicitly. But would you say that that was. That was behind your no. At the time, to Ben was a culture. I think it was white supremacy.

Justine Jalaff [02:12:23] It just did not fit that mold, that Utah mold, which is white, which is blonde.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:30] The conditioning or. I like dark conditioning.

Ben Jalaff [02:12:33] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:33] They create the idea.

Justine Jalaff [02:12:35] Yeah, he wasn't the ideal. And, like, we always joked that Ben looked like he was 30 when he was 15, because he had, like, that beard when he was 15, and he would do, like, these crazy sideburns and this huge goatee, and sometimes he would do, like, mustaches, trying to get attention, but it had the adverse effect. And then I was just, like, completely turned off by it. But then also, like, his confidence level wasn't. And I thought it was weird that he never talked to me. I was like, he likes me, but he's never talked to me. And I was like, that's just weird. He doesn't even know me.

John Dehlin [02:13:13] And Ben, I'm wondering, how much did you know of the Lamanite dark skin curse narrative? Did you identify as a Lamanite in high school? Did you know about the Book of Mormon teachings of Native Americans having dark skin because of the curse or.

Ben Jalaff [02:13:31] No, not at all. Not before the mission. I did get a book when I was younger in Venezuela with the Book of Mormon stories. I do remember seeing the lemonades depicted as savages, you know, but it never really glew into my mind that they were telling in the stories that mainly people from South America. It never really glued into me that that was what they were trying to do until much later. For me, it was just stories. And. No. And I also thought. And this might come across as weird, but I also thought, oh, they're talking about people in Mexico and Guatemala and El Salvador. Not. Not Venezuelans, because Venezuelans, you know, are different. In my mind, I will think that too, sometimes. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:16] And also, like, Canada's so diverse. Like, we have so much diversity because we're a country of immigrants and we rely so much on immigration and so. But I wasn't raised in that diverse society. I was raised in a Mormon bubble.

John Dehlin [02:14:35] Yeah, well. Yeah, well, Ben, just going back to your story, like, if the focus for you is assimilation into a white Mormon culture, whether it was explicit or not, I think the message you get there is dark, Latino, no bueno blanco Mormon, muy bueno.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:56] Is that fair?

Ben Jalaff [02:14:58] It's fair.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:58] Yeah. Sorry. He told me when we started dating, he didn't like dating girls from his culture. He didn't like dating Latinas.

Ben Jalaff [02:15:06] That's true, Ashley. And that dawns on me now because, again, it's a level of confidence that you lose. Right. To go back to my friend Matias and his wife Danila. I hung out with them last year, and they told me. They told me a story when I was in high school with them. My friend Danila tells me, like, Ben, when you were in high school, you were el pollo. El pollo means you were good looking, dude. But Mormonism did not let me display it because I was. At that time, I was becoming. This is gonna sound like a pun intended, but, like, I'm becoming white. Kind of like the teachings of Dispenser. I feel like I'm becoming white, so I'm looking for the white trophy, you know, like, why would I. If I want to become white, why would I date a Latina? That's a regressing into what I'm trying to achieve.

Justine Jalaff [02:15:59] And you can't get whiter than me. I'm very white.

Ben Jalaff [02:16:01] No. So I never, you know, search for the. For the Latina. I did before, but once I just became a Mormon, that disappeared because I felt like now if I want to attain this, I need to get. I need to get white.

John Dehlin [02:16:15] And that's a form of self hatred.

Ben Jalaff [02:16:17] Oh, yeah, right.

John Dehlin [02:16:19] I don't mean to use extreme language, but I don't know how.

Ben Jalaff [02:16:21] No, and it's good that you do that because you bring a different context to things that I'm trying to puzzle in my mind. This is why I love Terry. By the way, people watching this episode seek therapy. Therapy. If you need it, it helps. Because to me, you're throwing those words, and it helps me put a puzzle together in my mind. Like that makes sense. And for me. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you on that.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:42] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:16:42] It was also the law of chastity. Chastity aspect for you as well, because all of his friends in high school were sexually active and all those girls that liked him were sexually active, and he needed to stay away from that. So even though these girls showed interest in him.

John Dehlin [02:16:58] Oh, Latinas were sexually active.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:00] Yeah. He needed to stay away from them because they were.

Ben Jalaff [02:17:03] I knew they were dangerous to some degree.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:05] Yeah,

Ben Jalaff [02:17:08] man.

Ben Prepares for and Serves a Mission

John Dehlin [02:17:12] All right, well, I guess the next thing that comes to my mind is Ben's mission. But is there anything else you want to tell about your story up to the sort of college years before we go to Ben's mission?

Justine Jalaff [02:17:25] I think that's. I think we're good.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] Okay. So you all became friends after you declined his.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:33] Yeah, pre mission.

John Dehlin [02:17:34] Okay. And y' all stayed in touch. Okay. So should we go to your. Is your mission the next.

Ben Jalaff [02:17:41] Absolutely, yeah, let's do that.

John Dehlin [02:17:42] All right.

Ben Jalaff [02:17:44] Obviously, because I'm going dwelling a lot now. The next step was the mission. They start talking about going on missions. That's what I make the decision to go as well. Well, I'm not going to be left alone. I'm going to go. I don't know anything about the gospel at this point. I'm, like, just trying to figure it out. But I got to go because everyone's leaving. When I brought that to my parents, that's when things went south with my parents. Now my dad is no longer in favor. Now my dad has like, okay, stop. Now you're leaving for two years. You're going to miss college. Okay. You are going to do what there? You don't know anything. And number three, and he told me this. I think you had done enough. Now I got to put My foot down here. This is turning into a cult.

John Dehlin [02:18:34] And they weren't active by this point.

Ben Jalaff [02:18:36] They were sort of. But now their intent with the church was to bring protection to me with the things that they were trying to teach me already when I was younger, hey, don't drink, don't smoke, because those are harmful.

Ben Jalaff [02:18:49] But all of a sudden it was flipping because the Mormonism in Venezuela is so different now. They're experiencing completely different Mormonism in Canada where, like, you're going too fast now. You're going faster than us. And that was a huge fight. I remember my mom just got unhinged of anger.

Ben Jalaff [02:19:09] And I perceived them as they were influenced by the adversary. Satan has them and he wants to stop me from doing this because what is the church teaching me? That when you make that decision, things are going to get tougher. Satan's going to try to stop you because he knows you're going to bring other people into the church. He wants to derail you. I'm looking at my parents are clear enemy now. This is no more questioning about them Flincy or anything. I saw them as the enemy, which is so sad because they're my own parents. Once they.

John Dehlin [02:19:43] And they wanted what was best for you.

Ben Jalaff [02:19:44] Oh, yeah, I saw them as the enemy. And then I go to Welland and everybody's so happy that their kids are going on a mission and they're getting validation from their families. And here's my family just, no, you're not going. To the point where I made a decision to move to Welland and start working there to come up with money to go serve. And again, my parents being the loving parents they are, I worked, but I didn't come out with $10,000. Not even close.

Ben Jalaff [02:20:14] And I go back to my parents, like, can you help me pay for the rest of my mission? And they, yeah, we'll help you. Like, at this point, they had given up. I look at it now and they must have given up. At that point. They're like, we're done.

Ben Jalaff [02:20:30] I can see them being defeated at that point of trying to get me to just listen to them to the point where, like, we'll help you pay for this. And they just open, open up to even. They even threw this great farewell party for me, you know, with all these friends to send me off on a mission. And I remember when my dad drove me to the airport, I can really still sense that they don't want me to go. They're doing the last thing. My dad pulls me aside at the airport and he's talking to me and I'm going to cuss because this is exactly how he told me in Spanish.

Ben Jalaff [02:21:05] He said, gordo baja la mision no te la cagues. Translation, go on a mission, I'll pay for it. But don't fuck off, because now they're looking at it. This is our money now and we're giving it to you.

Ben Jalaff [02:21:23] Don't mess up. And that's the last thing my dad sent me, said to me before I took off. And to me, I'm going. And at this point, now I'm polishing into church the restoration. I got to preach my gospel, study to preach my gospel. And I went at it to the mtc.

John Dehlin [02:21:43] Can I just say one thing really quick? It is blowing my mind that the Mormon church is worth $250 billion. And there's a young immigrant Latino man with parents who are struggling immigrants.

Ben Jalaff [02:22:02] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:04] They fled for asylum.

Ben Jalaff [02:22:05] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:22:08] He's conditioned into wanting to go on a mission by the church. And it's the unwilling parents, along with that young man that have to pony up 10 grand to be the Mormon Church's salesperson for two years. You're going to give up two years of your life?

Margi Dehlin [02:22:28] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:22:28] Your parents are giving up their son to what they fear as a cult. And the church is going to have you pay to be their salesperson for two years.

Justine Jalaff [02:22:38] And you need to tell them where you worked to come up with that money. Oh, yeah, please, please tell them they

Ben Jalaff [02:22:43] were working at a. My dad was working.

Justine Jalaff [02:22:45] No, where you worked.

Ben Jalaff [02:22:46] Both me. Oh, I was. I work at a quail farm. I was literally working, you know, at this bear farm to ship them into restaurants with my best friend. We would work from 6 in the morning, sometimes 4 in the morning, all the way till 6pm and being a young, immature, pre missionary guy, I will spend my money having fun with my friends. I come up with some money, but not even close to the 10 grand. I think I came out with maybe $3,000. My parents came up with the rest, but my dad at the time was working at premium pork, which is another farm, just slaughtering pigs to ship them for restaurants. So he didn't have a good job either.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:25] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:26] That's amazing.

Ben Jalaff [02:23:26] And my mom was trying to open a business as a massage therapist and you know, esthetician. Esthetician. They were not in a good spot. We lived in an apartment in like a two bedroom apartment. We didn't have money. And so for me to see my parents pony up that money for me to go, even when they were against it. It's a testament of how they wanted to just be parents in the end.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:49] Or their well deserved money that should have gone somewhere else. Like your education.

Ben Jalaff [02:23:52] Yeah. And then I go on a mission with that stigma that my parents, even though they're paying for a mission, I'm still feeling like they're under the influence of Satan. But in my. They're supporting you and they're supporting me. And I go, thank you.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:07] Still telling you we don't want you to go.

John Dehlin [02:24:09] No.

Ben Jalaff [02:24:09] And to the point where when I got to the mtc, I remember going to bed and looking at the roof and like, what am I doing? What is happening? Like I'm about to do this for two years. I'm not a morning person. I don't study well. I don't read stuff. I read the Book of Mormon. It entered here and it dissipated here. I read the preach my gospel and like, yeah, Joseph Smith saw something and becomes great. It just literally I'm doing all these things thinking that the spirit is going to open my heart to knowledge and I'm going to become a spiritual giant. That never happened.

Ben Jalaff [02:24:45] I read things thinking that enlightenment will enter my life and I will become this great Mormon. I just wasn't quantifying because guess what? My internal me was still out there battling things. This is not you, Ben. This is not you. Not me. Inserting information to the point where I felt so inadequate. In the mtc, you have these missionaries come at you because they're trying to learn a language and trying to teach you the first lesson. And then I supposed to go out and do this to practice and I couldn't even get past a few sentences like I don't. What do I do now? I don't know what comes next. Oh yeah. And then I saw a pillar of light in his head. I never even memorized it. It was difficult.

John Dehlin [02:25:27] The Joseph story?

Ben Jalaff [02:25:28] Yeah. I couldn't. It was just difficult.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:31] And you did eventually though?

Ben Jalaff [02:25:32] Oh, I did and I became good at it. But yeah, it's just I went on a mission unprepared. I was ill prepared. My friends left. I want to be.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:39] Please tell them how you showed up at the mtc.

Ben Jalaff [02:25:41] Please. Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:44] This is the mission training center where you learn to become a mission.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:47] First of all. You flew there by yourself?

Ben Jalaff [02:25:48] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:49] No family came to say goodbye?

Ben Jalaff [02:25:51] No, no family can say goodbye. I went to the airport, actually. No, some of the. Well and guys came to the airport to say goodbye to me. I got up on the, on the airplane with a suit and While I'm in the plane, I take my suit off because I was overheating and I put shorts and a T shirt just because I was.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:09] You also had long hair.

Ben Jalaff [02:26:11] And I also had long hair because I found out that at the NTC you got a haircut. So what? Why would I pay for a haircut if I can just get it done there? Yeah, that's the thing, right? Like at this point, no one is telling me anything.

John Dehlin [02:26:24] So you showed up at the MTC with long hair.

Ben Jalaff [02:26:25] I showed up at the mtc.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:27] They didn't know who he was?

Ben Jalaff [02:26:28] No. And again, no one's coaching me to this. I show up at the mtc.

John Dehlin [02:26:32] I've never heard this, by the way.

Ben Jalaff [02:26:33] With shorts and a T shirt. My suit is on my suitcase and I go into the front desk. Hi, I'm Ben, Ben Halaf. I'm here to work as a missionary. And then they're looking at me like, are you an employee? Are you applying for a job? I think I'm applying for a two year job. I remember telling them that it's a two year job and I supposed to be here and you guys are gonna give me an id. Not a name tag. An id.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:56] I love this story.

Ben Jalaff [02:26:57] And the guy's like looking at me and they make a few phone calls and then somebody with a suit comes out. Who are you again? Oh, my name is Ben Hallaf. Here's my id. And then they finally find my name tag. Son, where is your suit? Oh, it's in the backpack. It was hot on the plane in your hair. Are you a missionary? I think so. They told me I will become a missionary the next day because my reporting date was the next day.

Justine Jalaff [02:27:21] Had you been set apart early?

John Dehlin [02:27:23] What?

Justine Jalaff [02:27:23] Were you set apart?

Ben Jalaff [02:27:24] Yeah, they set me apart. I went to a party. Right. I didn't know that when you get set apart, you're a missionary. No, I had a party.

Justine Jalaff [02:27:31] To the movies.

Ben Jalaff [02:27:31] Yeah. I went to watch Transformers on a Sunday after being set apart?

John Dehlin [02:27:36] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:27:36] I'm telling you, I didn't know what I was doing.

John Dehlin [02:27:38] So you showed up a day early?

Ben Jalaff [02:27:39] I showed up a day early. They gave me the name tag and put me in a room. And I remember the missionaries looking at me like, who are you? Oh, nice to meet you, I'm Ben. I'm not even referring myself as elder yet. I'm Ben. I'm Ben. And I sleep on the floor.

Justine Jalaff [02:27:52] Sorry.

Ben Jalaff [02:27:53] Because they put me in a room with no bed and I like, I showed up early. I thought they were ill prepared and Again, you bring up the Billion Dollar Church and they didn't even have a bed for me when I showed up.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:01] Well, no, because you weren't supposed to come.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:03] Yeah, but I show up in there,

John Dehlin [02:28:05] they could find a bed.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:06] I think they could find a bed.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:08] I don't know, it just.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:09] He got grouped in with some people and there wasn't a bed.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:12] Yeah, they were all because, I mean, I guess my companion wasn't. I don't know what it was but the next day they got me and got a haircut and they gave me a lecture. They're like, hey, you're a missionary of the Lord. I remember that talk. You're a missionary of the Lord and what you did yesterday is a little irresponsible. And then they taught me about first impressions because that's what you learn in the mtc. First impressions are important. Well, I certainly screwed the pooch on that one, you know, but I remember going to bed like I don't know anything. What am I going to teach the people in Alberta about this? Like I don't know anything.

John Dehlin [02:28:43] So you got called Alberta even though.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:46] Okay, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:47] Ontario. So still a Canadian mission?

Ben Jalaff [02:28:49] Yeah, it's a Canadian mission, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:51] Wow, what a way to start your mtcc. But you don't know any different.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:54] So you know what? No one taught me anything. Nobody told me when you get set apart.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:58] Sorry.

Ben Jalaff [02:28:59] No, no, go ahead.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:59] He was there with. Well and friends with some of the Welland guys. Yeah, I messed up the MTC with him.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:04] Okay, so you could, you know, play basketball or eat lunch.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:09] Play basketball?

Justine Jalaff [02:29:10] No, but like eat lunch with your.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:12] With my friends.

Justine Jalaff [02:29:12] With your friends from the stake and some from London.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:15] It must have been nice to have familiar faces.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:17] Oh, it was. As soon as I saw my friend in the mtc I like, okay, get familiar faces.

Justine Jalaff [02:29:22] And you were also serving with one of the well and guys in Calgary, Same mission.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:25] My friend Jonathan Midwin went to Calgary with me. Which he'll come out of my story like a flaming sore. But yeah, like I saw him on my mission, but yeah, that's the beginning.

John Dehlin [02:29:39] So how'd you like the mcc?

Ben Jalaff [02:29:41] Oh, I didn't know.

John Dehlin [02:29:43] You're only three weeks, right? Because three weeks.

Ben Jalaff [02:29:45] Yeah, I did not like it at all. I just, I didn't see the point. I like, look, whatever I'm learning here is better for me to be out there and do it physically because that's how I learned better. We will have these lessons with teachers. It just didn't click with me at all.

John Dehlin [02:30:01] Did Utah Feel weird? Did the United States feel weird?

Ben Jalaff [02:30:04] Yeah, it was the first time I'm in the States. I was a year into my citizenship in Canada. So, you know, it was my first time in Utah, my first time in the mtc experiencing all that culture. To be honest, I was so nervous about serving. It didn't really sink into me that I was doing that and experiencing all these things in the United States. No, I just remember just being in this building, big school, college thing, and I was with a bunch of people and I supposed to train for three weeks. But no, I didn't. I didn't like it at all.

John Dehlin [02:30:35] How did you like the temple? Taking out your endowments for the first time?

Ben Jalaff [02:30:38] Oh yeah, I ill prepare.

John Dehlin [02:30:41] Why are you laughing, Justine?

Justine Jalaff [02:30:43] I just been so funny to me. But his reaction was, sorry.

Ben Jalaff [02:30:49] We had temple prep classes in London and they didn't prepare me for the temple. Those lessons, they didn't do anything. I go to the temple and all of a sudden I'm doing all these things and in my head I'm like, what am I doing? I got this man giving me a robe and blessing me, washing. And then I'm washing.

Justine Jalaff [02:31:13] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:31:13] And then after that I'm starting to do all these things in the temple, you know, and I just. That's the first time. The first time that my true self sat there and like, what the hell are you doing here?

Margi Dehlin [02:31:28] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:31:29] And again they tell you, you know, you're making promises and stuff. And my true self, what promises am I making? What's going on here? Am I putting myself in this position? And I got friends that came with me. I was just confused, doing all the signals, all the things. I never really memorized anything. And they're telling me what to do. And I go into the celestial room. People are crying in this room that looks like a hotel lobby. I'm sorry. People see the celestial Room to be pretty. I just felt it's a high price hotel lobby.

Justine Jalaff [02:31:59] I always thought it was beautiful.

Ben Jalaff [02:32:00] I just thought it was a high price.

Justine Jalaff [02:32:02] I love the chandelier hotel lobby.

Ben Jalaff [02:32:04] I will sit there and my friend comes to me in tears. How was it? Man? You know what? I flat out thought, hey, let's not talk about this. Because I don't understand it. And I'm not sure how to grasp in my brain that what I did is not something more than just something else. I almost used cult inside the temple because I just.

John Dehlin [02:32:26] Because that word cold came to me.

Ben Jalaff [02:32:27] Oh yeah, 100%. I'm sitting there like, how did I not think this Is a cult. We're doing this. We're doing these signals. I walk out and I'm just sitting there like, whoa, that. That was not on double prep. That was not on double prep. And they come at me and they tell me, oh, you just gotta constantly go, are you kidding me? Wait, what?

Justine Jalaff [02:32:48] You also had really good friends with you who were like, oh, yeah, I know it's weird, but, you know, it gets better.

Ben Jalaff [02:32:54] I told them in the Celestial, I'm a loud guy. And I remember they told me to shoot because he told me, like, oh, you just gotta keep coming. Are you kidding me? I'm not that stupid. I did that at the temple thing just because. Not that stupid. I don't need to go a bunch of times to understand. It's weird.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:07] Yet you did. You did go back.

Ben Jalaff [02:33:10] Yeah, and I went back. Obviously I did, but it's just. To me, no, double wasn't good. I went home, and again, my parents being loving parents, I go home with my endowments, and my dad's like, hey, how was it? I don't know. Like, I'm telling you there. Are you sure about this? Like, my parents are using every scenario to, like, please, son, don't go. Yeah, but they didn't breach. I just told him it was weird. And they didn't even bother going there. Like, whatever. Yeah, temple wasn't good. And I remember going on my mission again as a missionary and still feel like, this is odd. And I got my name tag. I'm set apart and still felt the same way.

John Dehlin [02:33:50] What year did you start your mission?

Ben Jalaff [02:33:52] 2007.

John Dehlin [02:33:53] Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. So the MTC is over. And what was your mission like overall? Any important stories?

Ben Jalaff [02:34:00] Yeah, I'll be brief here so we can move forward, but I went on a mission, and my first area was

John Dehlin [02:34:06] Lethbridge, and Which is super Mormon.

Ben Jalaff [02:34:09] Oh, right.

John Dehlin [02:34:09] It's like Mormon. It's Utah, Canada.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:12] You were Spanish speaking?

Ben Jalaff [02:34:14] No, not in Lethbridge. Not in the beginning. In the beginning, I was English speaking.

John Dehlin [02:34:17] Now tell me if I'm right, but wasn't Lethbridge colonized by Mormon? Utah Mormon polygamists. They wanted to keep practicing polygamy.

Ben Jalaff [02:34:25] Yeah, they went to Carson and they bled over to Raymond and then over to Lethbridge. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:28] So Mormon prophets sent Utah Mormons to southern Canada in southern Alberta so they could keep practicing polygamy.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:35] And that's why Alberta has such a big Mormon population. And it's the Canadian byu.

John Dehlin [02:34:40] So southern Alberta and northern Mexico, like Hermosilla, Sonora area, Chihuahua. Those are two Huge Mormon polygamous colonies that our church started in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

Ben Jalaff [02:34:56] Yeah. And I went to Lethbridge. That was my first area. I had a great trainer. I respect him. He really took his time with me because I told him when I met him, like, hey, look, man, I don't know anything. I'm just gonna have to go to lessons. You do your thing and eventually I'll catch up to it. I flat out told him the truth. I don't know anything.

John Dehlin [02:35:12] What percentage of Lethbridge was Mormon, do you think?

Ben Jalaff [02:35:15] I probably will say about, like, at least 60% of people. That's a lot. The west side of Lethbridge was all Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [02:35:23] Kirsten is all Mormon.

Ben Jalaff [02:35:24] Yeah. Carsten's all Mormon, man.

John Dehlin [02:35:25] There's a Mormon temple there. One of the first Mormon temples ever built was in Karzakh.

Ben Jalaff [02:35:30] And three weeks into my mission, I went on exchanges with the soul leaders. And that was the first time. We're walking and this dude shows up from nowhere, and he starts telling us, your golden Bible this, your golden Bible that your prophet translated using a magic rock and translated the Book of Mormon using that magic rock.

Ben Jalaff [02:35:55] And I'm like, okay, that's funny. Sounded funny. My companion at the time, who was a soul leader, like, because we're on exchanges, he thought it was hilarious. Story short, it became within our zone. It became a funny story of the guy with the crazy rock and the story.

Ben Jalaff [02:36:11] And I'm looking at the reactions of those guys, and they certainly look like they didn't know anything about it, because I remember, like, a rock and magic rock. I'm picturing Joseph Smith. I got the Flip o Rama with Joseph translating the Book of Mormon with his finger. So I didn't quantify that. That's the first thing, which will come up a lot later.

John Dehlin [02:36:28] So can I just mention the south park episode that accurately depicted Joseph Smith looking at the stone in the hat that came out in 2003. I just googled it. So about four years before your mission starts.

Ben Jalaff [02:36:40] He said South Park. He said he watched it, which make the story even funnier, because I knew what South Park. I watched it as.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:46] I had seen that episode as a teenager.

Ben Jalaff [02:36:48] I had no boundaries of what I watched. When I was active Mormon, I watched south park, but I never watched that episode for some reason because it was anti Mormon. But it was one of those things that I laugh hysterically because I thought it was crazy.

John Dehlin [02:37:01] But actually, they got the Book of Mormon translation. South park got the Book of Mormon translation. Right. When the church had inappropriately mistaught that translation for over 150 years.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:12] I remember I was just switching through the cable channels and south park was like this cartoon I knew was inappropriate, but was also kind of funny. And so I ended up watching this episode that was about the Mormons, and it was the Rock and a Hat episode. And I remember distinctly saying out loud in anger, oh, they're just mocking us. They're just making fun of us. This is just anti Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:37:35] But also making stuff up because none of us.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:37] No, they're just making that up.

John Dehlin [02:37:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:39] Because I had never been taught that. There is something about Ben's mission I do want to touch on. He's making it sound like he went out there and he didn't know anything. There's a point where he did become committed.

Ben Jalaff [02:37:52] Well, that comes in a second here.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:54] Oh, you're gonna get there.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:54] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:55] Okay. And he does become, like a really good missionary.

Ben Jalaff [02:37:58] Yeah, I. I heard that. That's the first strike.

John Dehlin [02:38:02] So this anti Mormon comes up.

Ben Jalaff [02:38:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:04] Makes fun of the stone in the hat. And you conclude that he's lying, that he's just crazy.

Ben Jalaff [02:38:09] And then the next thing, this did something. And I'm not going to share too much of it because of privacy, but I went to my third area and I met a homosexual person that we were teaching. Again, this is me being ill prepared about policies. I don't know anything. We're teaching this guy and I don't know where. After we're done the lessons, he has to have a special interview with the district leader. And the meeting takes forever. And this has never happened with my investigators. They usually get an interview and they're done. About an hour later, he comes out and he says, oh, he needs to meet with the mission president.

Justine Jalaff [02:38:50] Why?

Ben Jalaff [02:38:51] Oh, yeah, because he's a homosexual. Okay. What does that mean? Family proclamation. Homosexuality can happen. Where does it say that? And then pull out the proclamation and show it to me again. Quantify, like here. And it dissipates in my ear.

Ben Jalaff [02:39:09] I'm not understanding this. I thought God opened his door. I come in. The more the better. But now you're telling me he can join because he's gay. I'm not processing that. And he goes and has an interview with the mission president. He comes out and I find out, oh, yeah, he's going to be baptized. Because he had agreed to not practice homosexuality when he said that.

Ben Jalaff [02:39:36] I'm a junior companion, so I got no pull. But my subconsciousness, which the church taught me was Satan is telling me, well, Ben, you Need to say something to him. Tell him not to join. I went to bed. Tell him not to join. Ben, tell him not to join. Tell him not to join.

John Dehlin [02:39:57] Because why?

Ben Jalaff [02:39:58] Because I didn't agree. Like, you're telling a person not to love. You're telling a person not to be gay. How do you do this? It's like you're telling me you're not allowed to date. Wait, what? To me, it's just like, no, this doesn't feel right. It feels off. Intuition telling me I'm a junior companion that ended in tragedy later. I'm not going to say what happened, but I went to my father a few months back because I told my dad, like, it's when my anger got really bad. I almost drove to the chapel in London, like, because I had a rock in my hand. Like, I'm gonna throw this at it. When I found out, like, my intuition told me no.

Justine Jalaff [02:40:42] What happened to that man?

Ben Jalaff [02:40:44] I'm not saying it.

Justine Jalaff [02:40:45] No, I mean. But that's why you were angry.

Ben Jalaff [02:40:47] Yeah, I was angry. I just.

Justine Jalaff [02:40:48] And that man did end up getting baptized and joining.

Ben Jalaff [02:40:51] My intuition told me to say no to him, and I didn't follow it. And don't tell me that was Satan. That was me. Me telling me, ben, say something, man. And I didn't man up to this day. And Justine tells me I have to heal. But to this day, I just did not follow my intuition. And it cost somebody. This is why Margi and John, I Sometimes I sit and just like, no, that was a big one on my mission. That was a big one that shook me. What that had done, though, is awoke the other Ben again.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:39] Yeah, yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:41] Now you have Mormon Ben, who's a missionary, but now you have Ben, who is trying to lead me, like, with your brain. Then the numbers came up. Oh, you had to focus on the numbers and stuff. And that's where things went sour with me and the mission.

John Dehlin [02:42:00] Meaning your mission president was number baptism focused?

Ben Jalaff [02:42:03] Yeah. Like, he wanted me to extend baptismal dates the first time I met someone.

John Dehlin [02:42:08] Like, to invite people, investigators get baptized the day you meet them.

Ben Jalaff [02:42:11] How do I do this? Do I like, hey, nice to meet you. My name is Elder Holof. This is Elder so and so. Hey, we have baptismal fund filled for next week if you want to do this.

John Dehlin [02:42:19] No, that's a real thing.

Ben Jalaff [02:42:20] Like, how do I do this? So I never did it. And I will get in trouble so many times with the phone calls from the soul leaders. Elder Halav, how many lessons do you teach? Well, if you want me to give you the bullcrap answer? I probably taught 20, but realistically, I would probably say two or three. And they had just given up because I just. I could not stand for this. This sounds false. Quality over quantity was my thing. If I'm baptizing people, I want quality. People that will stay, not quantity. Hey, I'm going to baptize hundreds. How many of those are going to stay active? That's how I thought. And it just became this wrestling thing with me and leadership. And I believe to this day that's the reason why I never became a district leader or a zone leader, because I was a no person.

Justine Jalaff [02:43:08] He would get in fights with his mission president.

Ben Jalaff [02:43:10] I got into fights with him. Arguments over what? He was just trying to tell me that this is how I need to do it. I remember one day I told him, hey, man, if I'm paying you ten grand to be here, you can send me home. But I like to think I've been out for, what, 10 months? That's half of what I paid to be here. So do I get that money back just because that's how I'm thinking now? I'm trying to be the best I can be. You're telling me to do something that goes against my nature. I don't want to do this number thing because I feel like it's not right.

Justine Jalaff [02:43:44] And what happened as a result of that? You breaking, not following the numbers and not extending the baptism and actually getting to know people and becoming people's friends. Like, what happened?

Ben Jalaff [02:43:57] I don't. I don't think I want to brag about this, because I think you should. I look at it differently now, but I had a lot of success as a missionary.

John Dehlin [02:44:04] You had a lot of baptisms.

Ben Jalaff [02:44:05] And I did that on my own. I did that without a sales pitch. I will sit like I'm sitting with you guys, and I'm getting to know you first, like you did. Hey, Ben, you're a Blue Jays fan? Yeah. I will look and look at things I can talk to people about. Oh, you're a Calgary Flames fan. Hey, this player's not performing well. And I'm starting talking to them so I can open a path of friendship, because to me, I'm looking at it. I need you to trust me because I'm going to tell you a fantastical story. I like you to believe me, but some missionaries will do the sales pitch, and to me, it just felt like it's not genuine.

Ben Jalaff [02:44:41] And I was getting results by just doing my own thing. And I had to bring out to the zone leaders a bunch of times. They will do the numbers thing and I will ask, how many bathrooms do you have? Elder? This. Well, I got this many. Tell me which pitch works best.

Ben Jalaff [02:44:55] Just because I was so angry that you're telling me something that is failing you already. My method is working. I don't understand this. And I just, I love my mission, but I love my mission because I feel like I connected with myself.

Margi Dehlin [02:45:12] Yeah. It kind of awakened you.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:14] Yeah, it really did. I could say I felt like I could do this different. It's one of those things that you start thinking I can change things. I can definitely make changes here.

Justine Jalaff [02:45:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:45:25] It does surprise me a little bit that you never made district or zone leader if your baptism numbers were high, because I would think that that would be the number your mission president would care the most about. But the truth is, I know better. The most important thing in Mormonism is obedience to authority.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:40] Yeah. No.

John Dehlin [02:45:41] And you weren't being obedient to authority.

Justine Jalaff [02:45:43] He's not a yes man. He's never been a yes man.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:45] No, I don't.

Justine Jalaff [02:45:46] And that will play in calling further down the line.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:48] I wasn't disobedient. I follow the rules. I was a hard worker. But I didn't if it didn't feel right. And again, it's like what we're discussing is my true self came out and like, hey, this doesn't make sense. So I'm not going to do it. He led my mission and I am glad that that person led me because I felt like, hey, it's giving me success. It's working, you know, and yeah, but I never made leadership. I was made trainer. That's as far as I went.

John Dehlin [02:46:16] Unbelievable.

Ben Jalaff [02:46:17] I didn't. And to me, I'm a prideful person a little bit. I wanted those things. I want to be a district leader and I want to be a soul leader because I feel like it's validation of my hard work. If you're at a job, you're not going to be working as a lower tier worker until you retire. You want to keep climbing the ladder, otherwise you got no ambition. In Mormonism, I had some level of ambition.

Ben Jalaff [02:46:41] Like if I go on a mission, I want to climb that ladder so I can go home and tell people like, oh yeah, I went here and I went here because I'm looking at value. I'm looking at what it might do to me when I come home, you know, But I didn't felt like I was valuing the mission. It just hit A wall. And that was it. Because I wasn't a yes man. It hurt me. It hurt my pride.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:03] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:04] It really did.

John Dehlin [02:47:05] But it also started waking you up.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:07] It did. Because.

Justine Jalaff [02:47:09] Well, it indoctrinated him and woke him up at the same time.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:13] Yeah. It created at this balance that will essentially begin my faith crisis during my mission. And we're not talking about me getting into true claims on my mission, but it started something.

Justine Jalaff [02:47:26] I think it was like, this is how I'm gonna be me in Mormonism.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:30] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:47:31] And I'm just gonna keep being me.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:47:35] Which is ultimately dangerous to a Mormon testimony to. To start listening to yourself over the external direction.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:44] Having. Having an existence of a self that's not fully merged with the Mormon identity that Mormonism creates is a threat.

John Dehlin [02:47:54] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:55] Long term. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [02:47:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:47:56] Okay. Anything else from your mission you want

Margi Dehlin [02:47:59] to share in the best way?

Ben Jalaff [02:48:02] My exit interview messed me up pretty bad. And it goes back to what my parents said when my parents told me, hey, you're going to miss college and all that stuff. Yeah. I went on a mission and at the end of my mission, I didn't know what I was doing. Like, I'm about to leave, I'm about to go home. Oh. Keep in mind that I have not written my parents. I stopped writing them, which I got in trouble with my mission president about it because again, my parents are not having any value to me. They're inactive.

Ben Jalaff [02:48:33] My exit interview goes back to what my parents said of being ill prepared about college and all that. I sat with my mission president, who was a guy that just came into the mission like he was two weeks fresh as a mission president. So I didn't connect with him.

Ben Jalaff [02:48:49] And he asked me, elder Halav, what are you going to do when you go home, man? I was honest with him. I don't know, find a job, maybe go to college. I have no idea what I'm doing. I just got to figure myself out. And he stopped me and he said, wait a second, you're missing the whole point, and goes on this rant about eternal marriage. I have to go home. I need to find a wife and I need to get married right away.

John Dehlin [02:49:12] Mormon wife.

Ben Jalaff [02:49:13] Mormon wife. And story short, it just sent me home with. I got no tools. You know, two missions is a two year mission and you come home and you're already feeling displaced for a good while. And I'm supposed to find an eternal companion right. When I step off the plane. It just set me into a path that. We'll discuss that when it comes up. But it started my. My Mormonism got really bad after I came home from a mission. It just did not do me any favors.

John Dehlin [02:49:55] Your Mormonism got bad?

Ben Jalaff [02:49:56] Yeah. Like, you think you come home after the mission and you'll be this again, this powerful person to share. And I come home to parents that are not active. Most of my friends are still serving from Welland, and they're slowly coming home. But then now I'm supposed to again, it brings it to the Hunger Games. My friends are coming home. I'm home. And the next step is marriage in a very small bubble with very limited options.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:21] Right.

John Dehlin [02:50:22] How does that tie to the Hunger Games? I want to make sure I understand that.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:24] Well, like, you have all my friends coming home, and they all have the same mentality. They got to find a future wife. Very limited options with the girls that are available in London and in the stake. And I felt like, again, competing. And now I'm not competing for a girl. I'm competing against my own friend.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:44] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [02:50:45] You're also competing for your eternal life.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:47] And I'm. Yeah, exactly. So now I.

Justine Jalaff [02:50:49] You gotta find the Mormon girl.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:51] And there's. I would imagine there's like that leftover feeling from, like, feeling not chosen also. So you're like, I have a sense for how hard this could be. He's making it seem like a very simple thing. Go home, get married. But, like, you know, remembering that for you, this is not an easy.

Justine Jalaff [02:51:13] Like, he couldn't even date as a teenager in Mormonism.

Margi Dehlin [02:51:16] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [02:51:16] How's he supposed to come home and get married in Mormonism?

Margi Dehlin [02:51:18] How is that something that you feel like you can control?

Ben Jalaff [02:51:22] It was terrible. I come home and again, this is. I want to say this because I know my friends are watching this. And like I told you in the very beginning, I'm not holding back. But what that did was set me off in a path of any girl that I would see. Oh, I wonder if I could marry her. Every girl. Oh, I want to marry her. Oh, she's good. She's valuable. I was just so focused. Focused. My friends sometimes will make fun of

Justine Jalaff [02:51:55] it and there is a level of, like, desperation.

Ben Jalaff [02:51:58] I look desperate, and my friends will look at that desperation and sometimes make fun of it. Not even in a malicious way, but. But I'm looking at it now like, yeah, it was very, very harmful to be that way and to feel like you're acting desperate in the eyes of so many people. It just became this thing where, like, why am I not good enough? I just did this for two years. And you learn as a missionary, the better you are, the more focused you are, the more results you have. You find these results at home and I'm not seeing any.

Justine Jalaff [02:52:34] And you'll get blessed from your mission by finding an eternal companion.

Margi Dehlin [02:52:37] Yeah, that's the transactional kind of nature of you give this, you get that. You give this, you get that. In fact, oftentimes it fails.

John Dehlin [02:52:46] Yeah, it's a joke. Elders and sisters will tell each other. The better missionary I am, the hotter my future wife or husband will be. Right.

Ben Jalaff [02:52:54] Well, that paid off at the end with her. Awesome. But at that time, it just certainly didn't feel like that way. I had not have a girl. Yeah, tell me that I am good looking. I had not a girl. Just tell me these things that will bring me joy. I'm chasing this girl from my mission that I met, a sister missionary, just because in my mind as well, I'm thinking, oh, if I date a girl like her, my eternity is secure.

Ben Jalaff [02:53:26] So I'm also have a list now in my mind of what I want. Because I feel like if I'm gonna find an eternal companion, she has to be a good mom, a good wife. She served a mission, so that's plus on my book. But not even thinking, am I even attracted to this girl physically or am I just seeing the eye of the beholder? I think, oh, she's a good member checklist. I'm good. And not even thinking, am I clicking with this girl? It's just some of those things again. When I came home from my mission, I will, I will look at it as like, yeah, things are starting to crumble very, very, very fast.

John Dehlin [02:53:59] Then, yeah, okay, it sounds like you had a great mission in terms of baptisms, but you didn't come home feeling like you had a successful mission.

Ben Jalaff [02:54:11] No, because they're promising me that my success will bring me blessings. I'm not, certainly not seeing any. When I came home, my parents are inactive. They still look like the enemy to me. I'm not clicking in with my own parents, you know, and I'm not seeing the Mormon success right away. You know, I'm coming home and my friends are coming home and they've started dating right away. They're seeing the success and I'm still not experiencing that.

Justine Jalaff [02:54:34] They're also dating girls that you liked and I'm also. Yeah, you just took a step back because they went and said they like her.

Ben Jalaff [02:54:41] So whenever I like a girl I like, I'll, I'll stay away because he's A friend of mine, and I want to ruffle the feathers. And again, it's just. I just wasn't seeing them, like, all this hard work, what's going on here? Like, I'm not feeling the blessings coming. I still don't have a career. I don't have a pull for my parents words as prophetic. I came home, I don't know what I'm doing. And my friends from school who were perceived danger were moving on with careers because they went to college, they got ahead of the game, and here I am. I feel like. Like I'm way behind the ball here.

John Dehlin [02:55:15] Got it.

Margi Dehlin [02:55:16] That totally makes sense.

Justine's Mission Experience

John Dehlin [02:55:18] Should we do your mission now? Justine, real quick.

Justine Jalaff [02:55:20] Do you have time?

John Dehlin [02:55:21] Yeah, just real quick. I mean, just the important points, you know, because you would have gone after he come home or would you have left while he was there?

Justine Jalaff [02:55:29] So Ben came home from his mission and I was in school for Alberta. And then I came back to Ontario for about a month, waiting for my visa to go to the States for my mission to. So we hung out in between that time as friends.

John Dehlin [02:55:43] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [02:55:43] And then I went off on my mission.

John Dehlin [02:55:44] And where were you called to?

Justine Jalaff [02:55:45] Washington. Everett.

John Dehlin [02:55:47] So Washington state?

Justine Jalaff [02:55:49] Yeah. The Everett mission. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:55:51] And how, you know, how would you summarize your MTC mission experience?

Justine Jalaff [02:55:56] So I was so green, and I just wanted to be so good. And I always thought I was gonna serve a mission. I was told that my baby blessing said I was gonna serve a mission. I had spiritual experiences where I felt I was called to serve. Those who have a desire are called to the work. I felt like I had a desire. I felt like I was called to the work. I had an older sister who served in denmark, and she's 12 years older than me, and I constantly heard her success stories as a 10 year old, and so I thought I would have that too. And so I just went out ready to change the world and spread the gospel. And that did not happen for me.

Ben Jalaff [02:56:41] No.

Justine Jalaff [02:56:41] No. And my mission was very number focused, which put so much pressure on me because I just wanted to do. I've always wanted to do what they asked me to do. That was my definition of being good. And they were asking me to follow these numbers, but I didn't agree with the numbers. And they were making me feel so much stress and pressure, and they were making me feel like shit. Like I felt like I suck because it's. They call it the godless north. Like.

John Dehlin [02:57:17] Call what the godless north?

Justine Jalaff [02:57:19] Washington state.

John Dehlin [02:57:20] Oh.

Justine Jalaff [02:57:20] On my mission, they called it the godless north.

John Dehlin [02:57:23] Why?

Justine Jalaff [02:57:23] Because people didn't believe in God and people didn't want to join the church.

John Dehlin [02:57:29] Just secular, more secular.

Justine Jalaff [02:57:32] I don't know. That's just what they said on my mission. And so I just. And also sister missionaries, we always got vehicles. And we were not put in urban communities. We were put in rural communities. So we were literally put in these small, spaced out towns that very low baptizing success.

Justine Jalaff [02:57:52] And so I had like my district leaders who were in Everett who were baptizing like crazy because, you know, they're in the city. And then here I am, just slaving away, slaving away, not baptizing, not finding people to teach, putting myself down. And then our mission had a standard that you had to meet every month of numbers.

Justine Jalaff [02:58:15] If you didn't meet that, you just felt like a failure. And I remember my. My one. And then a big thing on my mission was also the send out the baptism invitation. The first time you have a lesson that was like drilled because my trainer and I went to a, like a training conference for all the people being trained and their trainers and our mission president literally sat everyone down and chastised everyone for not doing it.

Justine Jalaff [02:58:45] So that was like my introduction to the mission. But I didn't agree with it. I didn't understand it. I was like, how can I extend the baptismal invitation? They don't even know what that is. I don't understand this. I don't understand the numbers. I don't understand this pressure. I thought I was just gonna go love and serve people and spread the gospel. Why is this happening?

Justine Jalaff [02:59:06] And why do I feel so unhappy? And just then we got a new mission president. And I remember telling my companion, I think. I think this one's gonna be all about love. I just have this feeling he's gonna be all about love. And he comes in and of course he does. He gives a talk about charity and love. And then he gets rid of the mission standards. He makes them blank.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:31] He gives us like a. Like a plastic paper copy that's blank and you just fill it in on your own. And I was like, oh, my goodness. Yes.

John Dehlin [02:59:46] Yes.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:46] Finally. And then an area authority came in like a month later and told him he had to put it back. And I was like, oh, okay.

John Dehlin [02:59:54] He was trying to have missionaries be more self driven.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:57] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:58] And just like make their own goals that were according to their area. And he understood that they. The standard didn't work for all the areas.

John Dehlin [03:00:05] When you say standard, do you mean like numbers?

Justine Jalaff [03:00:08] The numbers, Baptism lessons, invitations.

John Dehlin [03:00:11] So there Was like every area had a quantity.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:15] The whole mission as a whole had a standard which was. Which was the same numbers.

John Dehlin [03:00:19] What were those numbers?

Justine Jalaff [03:00:20] I can't remember. I think it was like one baptism a month, certain amount of lessons, a certain amount of invitations.

John Dehlin [03:00:27] So X number of lessons a week. X number of invitations to baptism a week.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:00:32] And it was giving X number of baptisms a month. And yeah, areas can vary wildly. If you're in an area with, you know, people of lower socioeconomic status, maybe who are immigrants, you could baptize many in a month. Or you could be in a more affluent area with more educated people who just. You could. You'd be lucky to get one.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:55] So the sister missionaries were put in the more affluent areas because they'd be.

John Dehlin [03:00:59] Quotes. Safer.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:59] Maybe they'd be safer. And the elders were put in the more non safe areas and they had the higher baptisms.

John Dehlin [03:01:04] Yeah. Which made you feel bad.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:07] Made me feel bad.

John Dehlin [03:01:08] But they had the same standards.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:10] But we all had the same standards that we had to meet.

John Dehlin [03:01:12] But then when your new mission president tried to allow you to set goals based on your area and according to your heart and your understanding of your local situation and what you personally think you could achieve, then the area authority came in and changed them all back,

Justine Jalaff [03:01:29] said, no, you have to have this.

John Dehlin [03:01:30] Wow, that's crazy.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:32] And I was like, what felt like whiplash. And so I really, really struggled with that. And so eventually I got to the end of my mission and I told myself, you know what? There's only so much I can control.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:45] I can control if I talk to everyone I see. I can control if I smile at people. I can control how I serve and how I talk to people and how I teach the lessons. And so at the end of my mission, I was like, I can't live like this anymore. And I told myself it's between me and God, and he knows how hard I've worked and that he can be proud of me at the end of every single day. And I had to tell myself that over and over and over again so that I wouldn't fall into a single state of depression that God is proud of me, he loves me.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:23] And no, I am a really good missionary, even if I don't have the numbers, even if I don't have the baptisms, even if I'm not having the success that I was taught and thought I was destined to have. So. So I would say I also saw my mission as an erasure of myself.

Margi Dehlin [03:02:43] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:44] Because I just wanted to be obedient. Obedient was drilled into us. Obedient. Exact obedience will get you the blessings. Exact obedience will get you the baptisms. And I'm like, well, I'm being so obedient to the point where I'm exercising in the morning and I feel like a crippled old lady walking up this hill trying to get exercise because I'm so physically spent. I worked myself to the ground physically, mentally, emotionally. And I came home and I didn't even know who I was anymore. And that brings us to us when we started dating.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:26] I think that's so interesting because in a way then you both hit up against the rigidity of the system on your mission. Yeah, in different ways.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:36] But you both did.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:39] You both gave. Worked very hard. You both gave it your all. You both, like, really, really engaged with that process and walked away feeling like, wow, I totally fit. I was not valued.

Ben Jalaff [03:03:52] And there's nothing wrong with seeking a

Justine Jalaff [03:03:56] payoff, wanting the validation when you sacrifice so much.

Ben Jalaff [03:04:02] Am I wrong here to think like, hey, where's my cheese? I mean, come on, like, this is a two year mission. Just give me something.

John Dehlin [03:04:09] 10 grand's a lot.

Ben Jalaff [03:04:11] Exactly.

John Dehlin [03:04:12] In two years. 10 grand in two years.

Ben Jalaff [03:04:14] And then you mentioned, like, the church with all this money. We're going out there with all money. Well, actually my parents money, you know, and yours. And to me, it's just like, where is my payoff here? It's not like I'm going the deep end to be completely, completely a terrible missionary. I work hard. Just give me something, give me value. Give me a district leader calling me just to appease Elder Halo because, you know he's doing something. It's just he never, never gave me that. Am I wrong to think that, like, why am I so wrong to seek for this? Because this is what actually started to drive me away from the church. Is that. How much can I do for you? You're not doing anything back for me.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:04] Yeah, that's right.

Ben Jalaff [03:05:05] You're making me feel like so. Oh, man. I'm getting there again.

Justine Jalaff [03:05:11] That's part of our deconstruction. So we'll get there.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:05:15] All right. Yeah. Maven just sent us the note that we're promised. The Lord is bound when you do what he says. In other words, we're promised some reciprocal.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:25] That's right. It would be different if from the beginning, they never offered, they didn't promise. So it was like informed consent. You're gonna go on a mission, you'll work hard, you're probably not gonna get a lot. You're not gonna. That's different. But you are promised things. You are promised things that you want, like, really badly. And so it's kind of what happens when the process, I think, breaks down so that there's nothing there for you to connect to that keeps you going. And then even after, when you get home, you're kind of like, yeah, I'm not seeing any of those promises you promised coming true.

John Dehlin [03:06:00] Although you both got your eternal companions, so you did get the promise. So how did y' all end up getting married? I want to hear that story.

Coming Home and the Beginning of Their Romance

Justine Jalaff [03:06:12] So it begins with me coming home from my mission. And a bit of a funny story. My sister. So they came and they picked me up in Buffalo Airport to go across to Niagara Falls. And on the way, while we were crossing the border, my sister's like, ben just keeps calling the house. And I keep telling him, you're not home from your mission and you're not even released yet. And I was like, oh, Ben is around.

John Dehlin [03:06:39] Did you all write?

Ben Jalaff [03:06:41] Yeah, just once. I wrote her. I wrote her once.

Justine Jalaff [03:06:43] He wrote me once when he was in Alberta and I was in Edmonton for some school.

John Dehlin [03:06:46] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [03:06:47] And then I wrote him while I was on my mission. I did, Yeah, a couple times.

Ben Jalaff [03:06:52] That was something. I'll tell you in a bit here. I got that letter when I was dating a girl at the time and

Justine Jalaff [03:06:57] who was not a member. Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:06:58] Who was not a member. And. And I got so excited about the letter with Justine that I didn't even notice that she had gotten upset and left the house. Cuz here I am having mail from Justine and like, oh, man.

John Dehlin [03:07:09] Your girl, the girl you were dating, saw you reading a letter from Justine.

Ben Jalaff [03:07:13] Yeah. I must have said some consciously to her. This is my first love. Oh. And I wasn't thinking. It's just. I got a letter from her and it just. Whoa.

Justine Jalaff [03:07:20] Yeah. There's something in me that wanted to write to Ben. We were friends, so.

John Dehlin [03:07:25] All right.

Justine Jalaff [03:07:26] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:26] I actually kind of love that. For your love story, your life story, that it started with friendship. Because what we're learning about how relationships work, longevity wise, is that friendship, the friendship piece oftentimes is the stabilizer for the relationship over the long term.

Justine Jalaff [03:07:47] We had the friendship piece. We had the youth memories together with the same group of friends. We knew each other, we knew each other's families. And so I come home from my mission and I really struggled because the day I came home from my mission, my grandma passed away. Like, my mom literally came from my grandma's deathbed to come pick me up after watching her mom die, she came and picked me up at the airport. So I came home to my grandma's funeral. And that did not help me in navigating. Coming back to real life, it kind of put me in this state of. I can't say depression, but a state of dismotivation and feeling unhappy.

Justine Jalaff [03:08:33] And I just. Yeah, I didn't really know what was going on with me. And then Ben called, and he was in Utah at the time selling pest control. So he called from Utah to talk to me. And talking to him felt like I was seen for the very first time. Like, this guy sees me somehow through the phone by what he's telling me. He was basically validating me and telling me everything I couldn't. He's very good with words. So he was putting into words everything my heart was feeling and thinking that I could not put into words. And I would just. I was just, like, on this phone call, like, yes, yes, exactly.

Justine Jalaff [03:09:20] Yes. That's. Yes. And that was the first time I felt like I was coming back into myself, was having that phone call with Ben.

John Dehlin [03:09:30] Yeah. Wow.

Margi Dehlin [03:09:31] It's meaningful.

Ben Jalaff [03:09:33] Yeah. I just. That mentality, like, oh, she's coming home. I. I gotta jump this very quickly here.

Justine Jalaff [03:09:41] Even though you were in Utah?

Ben Jalaff [03:09:43] Even though I was in Utah. But, like. But again, the reason why I was in Utah to sell pest control was because I'm also trying to date someone because I kind of given up in Ontario and I got this opportunity to come to Utah. Like, oh, there are a lot of girls there, you know, so I'm gonna go there and do that. But when she came home and I talked to her on the phone for three hours, it's just something in my brain clicked, like, oh, man, I gotta get out of here. You know? And I remember I told my boss at the time, like, hey, you know, there's this girl at home. And he asked me to go to the temple to pray about it.

Margi Dehlin [03:10:15] And your boss did?

Ben Jalaff [03:10:17] Yeah, because he.

Justine Jalaff [03:10:18] It was.

Ben Jalaff [03:10:18] It's called Sage Pest Control. And he was a member of the church and he ran it, and he got a bunch of missionaries in ut. And those missionaries knew me, and they thought, oh, man, Elder Halal, I've had a lot of success in the mission. He'll be good at selling this. And I showed up in here to do that. But when I talk to her, it derailed everything. And then I go and tell my boss, oh, yeah, go to the temple and pray about it. I went to the temple, like, hey, can I go home? God, And I just. Right away, yeah, I wasn't thinking. And then I went.

Justine Jalaff [03:10:51] Well, at the time, he framed it as a very big spiritual experience, but he really just wanted to come home.

Ben Jalaff [03:10:58] I just wanted to come home. I thought that, you know what? This is a great opportunity. She just came home from a mission. I just talked to her on the phone for three hours. And it felt like for the first time, me and Justine had talked. And it felt good. It didn't feel odd. I didn't feel awkward. Awkward. I felt great.

John Dehlin [03:11:15] And, Justine, what made you open to liking Ben so.

Justine Jalaff [03:11:20] I did not like him at that time. We were friends.

John Dehlin [03:11:22] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:11:23] And then he. We talked again. Oh. I called him while he was in Utah crying. And he took that as a sign that I liked him. So he flew back from Utah to date me. And who asked me out on a date?

Justine Jalaff [03:11:47] And to make a story short, because it's a bit of a long story, we did end up going out on a date. And I actually had my eye on someone in Alberta. So I wasn't planning on living in Ontario. I had one year left in my degree. I was only going to be in Ontario for three weeks, and I was going to move back to Alberta, and I was going to go see what would happen with this guy in Alberta.

Justine Jalaff [03:12:10] And then here comes Ben calling me at, like, midnight, telling me he's home and asking me, please, can we go on a date? And I remember getting off the phone and waking my mom up, my mom up at one in the morning and saying, should I go on a date with him? Like, I'm not even gonna stick around. And she's like, just give him a chance.

Ben Jalaff [03:12:32] Yeah. So.

Justine Jalaff [03:12:33] So I did. We. Ben ended up. I don't know why. This was our date. Driving all the way from London to pick me up in Niagara Falls to drive me to drive us all the way back to London to have our date. I think because you had to work that after.

Ben Jalaff [03:12:50] I was thinking, I remember what it was.

Justine Jalaff [03:12:51] And he planned this whole day in London. And what ended up happening was like, I'm fresh from my mission. I don't know what I want, who I am. I think I'm going back to a whole Alberta. I don't want anything to do with Ontario. Like, Alberta is the place to be. And here I have been, like, opening up to me on this day and basically. Can I use the word big?

Ben Jalaff [03:13:16] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [03:13:17] Basically begging me to give him a chance. And I'm. I'm sorry. I. I'm like. I was a bit of a snob. Let's just admit it. Like, I was like, I thought it was better than Ben. And, like, I'm just like. I'm just like, you know what? I'm just gonna tell him that I'll give him a chance so he leaves me alone. So I told him, okay, yeah, like, definitely. Like, if I come back from Alberta and nothing happens, I'll get like, yeah, definitely, we can. He's like, yes, I just need hope. I just needed hope. And then. And. But then what ends up happening on the same date?

Justine Jalaff [03:13:50] Like, this is how contradictory I was. Like, I mean, literally rejecting him. And then the next moment, we're watching a movie and I'm cuddling him. Like, I just. It was like, my heart wanted one thing and my mind was telling me something else. Like, my heart wanted to be. Something in my heart was gravitating towards Ben, but my brain was telling me, no, you got to go to Alberta. No, you got to go. This guy.

Justine Jalaff [03:14:14] Anyways, we ended up. Ben ended up kissing me. A very innocent, sweet kiss. Nothing more. And it was the best first kiss of my life. And after that moment, I was hooked up.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:14:27] Really hot. It worked.

Ben Jalaff [03:14:32] I did it. Finally.

John Dehlin [03:14:34] Louisa.

Ben Jalaff [03:14:35] Yeah. That was a really weird date, now that I think about it. Yeah, it's great. It's funny to me. It's just like, that was a really weird date. It ended well, though.

Justine Jalaff [03:14:46] But let's just get serious for a moment. You never should have had to beg. Yeah, that never should have happened. And I never should have been in a position where I thought, oh, I'll just give him a chance. That never should have happened. Yeah, it was. It has been a funny story for so long, and since deconstructing, I'm like, no, that never should have happened.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:15:07] What do you think that was about?

Justine Jalaff [03:15:09] That was about him not fitting the mold. Him not having success dating in the Mormon bubble, him being so desperate that he felt like he had to fly back from Utah, give up money because he was making good money. And so he quit midway to see if he could have a chance with this girl he's liked since he was 15 years old who never gave him a chance. But because of that one phone call, he's gonna fly back and see if he can make this work with the girl who fits everything, who's the rm. Mormon girl from Ontario. And he never should have had to do that.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:15:50] How much of that. I don't want to interject this if it doesn't fit, but how much of that was about race, do you think? Or perceptions of race.

Justine Jalaff [03:15:57] I don't know if it was race, but just about like perception. Like, like, like I'm going to marry an Alberta boy who's obviously white and going to be an engineer. And here I have Ben, who I know full well was a refugee to the country who still doesn't even know what he's going to do for his education.

Justine Jalaff [03:16:18] Like he, he, he wasn't going to. Like I needed to marry someone who could provide, who could make good money if I could, if I needed to be a stay at home mom. Right. I don't know if I was actually thinking that, but that's everything I internalized.

Justine Jalaff [03:16:32] But what ended up happening is that I ended up being with Ben because he made me feel like me. That's why I got hooked. Ben made me feel like me. He was the only person I felt comfortable around. He made me laugh, he, he, he made me feel beautiful. And I knew that he would always be loyal. For some reason at the time, his loyalty was very important to me. And so I was looking at him as he's going, he's my companion. He's going to be a companion. I wasn't looking at him as a provider or a priesthood holder, although he was a priesthood holder and he was an rm. But he also just made me feel like me.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:21] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:17:22] When I had come from an experience that had erased me. I don't think Ben and I ever would have dated if I hadn't served a mission. I don't think it ever would have happened.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:35] I think that's so interesting to kind of consider what. How your life sometimes lines up to provide circumstances that either, I don't know, bring certain things to the forefront of your mind as being important. That maybe. And also here, like I think it's important to acknowledge that you went off script from Mormonism in this way at this time, which would end up not

Justine Jalaff [03:18:01] working out later financially.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:06] Yeah, maybe in some. But also like the things that you did prioritize if we're gonna look at relationships, like some of those things that make relationships work that actually are valuable. You chose those things off script where more and more you see when people stay on script and do it. Cause he's a, and he's a strong priesthood leader and he'll be a strong provider. Like oftentimes they end up in divorce later. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:18:36] And I like never thought he would never be a provider. I just said I just need to help him be a provider. Because I've been Canadian my whole life and I have an education. So now I can help him do the same.

John Dehlin [03:18:50] And Ben, how does it feel to be listening to all this?

Justine Jalaff [03:18:54] He's heard it all before.

Ben Jalaff [03:18:56] Well, one important thing now that we're on this topic really quick is, is honesty. You know, I listened to that story, and back then, it's like, oh, it's a great story. Justine is 100% right. I should have never begged. But the value I'm going to place myself right now is this. I never in my life. And I've been married to Justine for 13 years now, okay? And I'm saying this with as polite as I could be to everybody that knows me. Nobody ever once told me that Justine was lucky she married me. It was all always the other way around. That bothers me.

John Dehlin [03:19:41] Everyone told you you were lucky. Everybody you got to marry Justine.

Ben Jalaff [03:19:45] That I'm the lucky one. That really, right now, hurts my pride. And now that we're talking about honesty, that story, what Justine said, I should have never begun. No, I shouldn't have. I should have just go, hey, let's go out, yes or no, and move on. But instead, I am with the confidence of no one to just. If this doesn't work. I remember telling that in my head when I came home from Utah. If it doesn't work with Justine, I'm done.

John Dehlin [03:20:14] Done with what?

Ben Jalaff [03:20:15] With the church. I'm like, I'm done. I need a break. I can't do this. I had dated a non member before Justine. This story is crucial because this girl that I dated at the gym, I met her at the gym, remember seeing her. And for the first time in my life, I felt like my other person took over. Hey, Ben, she's good. Look, isn't she go after her.

John Dehlin [03:20:36] Was she Latina?

Ben Jalaff [03:20:37] No, she was just a girl in the gym that I thought was beautiful. And I went home fighting my feelings. Should I talk to her? Should I talk to her? And then all of a sudden, I felt like, oh, yeah, let's talk to her. I went, story short, I end up dating her.

Ben Jalaff [03:20:51] And this girl was the very first girl that told me for the first time, oh, I just think you're hot, Ben. Wait a minute. You think I'm good looking? Oh, yeah, you're hot. Whoa, this is new territory to me. I haven't heard this before.

Ben Jalaff [03:21:07] So now guess what's happening here. Now there's value entering in my life now. Now I know I can get stuff done, you know? So what happens is in that moment, dating that non member, I fell in power while the whole entire Mormon world is messaging Me telling me to break up with her because she's dangerous or inferior. Or inferior.

John Dehlin [03:21:29] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:21:29] And truth be told, this girl was the very first girl that make me feel like a million bucks and then yet elect to a scenario where my parents were leaving out of town. Again, my mom and dad, I cannot give them enough praise. They're leaving town and they know my girlfriend's coming over to hang out with me. And my dad comes to me and he puts a condom in my pocket. And then I tell my dad, what are you doing? Well, your girlfriend's coming. You want to be prepared, dad. You know law of chastity. Trust me, man, just keep it. And my dad leaves. Later that night, she wanted to have sex. And I panic to the point of hyperventilating. Didn't happen. The next day, she broke up with me.

Justine Jalaff [03:22:23] Why?

Ben Jalaff [03:22:24] Because in the Mormon world, they will tell you that, oh, good, that was Satan tempting me. And I saved myself. But what about her? What about her giving that part her vulnerability and just putting herself out there? What about her feelings? How does a woman feel to be rejected that way? Did I ever compute that? No. In more minutes than I saved myself. And I never thought about her, how she felt.

John Dehlin [03:22:53] From her perspective, sex was a rejection of her.

Ben Jalaff [03:22:57] She told me that I'm breaking up with you. Because what I did was I opened myself to you and you said no.

Justine Jalaff [03:23:05] And you had been dating for a while.

Ben Jalaff [03:23:06] And I've been dating for a while. I'm 23, I'm an adult.

John Dehlin [03:23:09] She's probably the similar age. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:23:13] And that experience, because in my Mormon brain, well, if I do this, I'm not going to get married. And to this day, you know, I always thought that if I tell Justine that I'd done some things with her, Justine wouldn't marry me. And again with the honesty part is that. I gotta give myself some value that I never felt in Mormonism. And to me, it just that what hurt me the most is that to lead to eventually my exit later is that not feeling rewarded for anything I'm doing. And now Justine, she uses the word beg. And we talked about this. Can I use this word? And I told Justine, absolutely. Because he highlights how I felt after I came home. Yeah, I was in. I was begging the whole time.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:05] You were desperate.

Ben Jalaff [03:24:05] I was begging.

John Dehlin [03:24:09] I'm remembering. Well, whenever Book of Mormon racism comes up with modern Mormons, this idea that the Book of Mormon is racist because Lamanites were cursed with dark skin because of their wickedness, the common modern Mormon apologetic response is the Book of Mormon isn't racist. It says in there that all are alike unto God. Right. Bond and free, black and white, men and women, whatever. And your story is just reminding me that that may be in the Book of Mormon, but that's not how Mormon culture works. Because an immigrant of color in Mormonism is not of equal status.

Ben Jalaff [03:24:53] No.

John Dehlin [03:24:54] To. To multi generational white.

Justine Jalaff [03:24:57] Not in Ontario.

Ben Jalaff [03:25:00] No.

Justine Jalaff [03:25:00] And also when I started deconstructing, it did hit me. I'm like, ben experienced racism.

John Dehlin [03:25:07] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:25:08] That was racism and classism, right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:25:12] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:13] And it was rigged. It was rigged against you from the beginning. You know, it's not like. Because I think what happens is we're wired to think it was us. Like, what am I not doing? What am I not? At least for while we're in the conditioned state, you know, once it starts to fall apart.

Ben Jalaff [03:25:31] I feel like when you said that. And for that to happen, certain things had to happen to unlock that part of my brain. I had. What is the name of that bishop? He's the big guy, man. I like his episode. Nick.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:46] The guy.

John Dehlin [03:25:46] Nick Jones.

Ben Jalaff [03:25:47] Yeah. The guy that resigned from the pulpit from Mississippi. Yeah. I remember listening to him about how he wasn't able to tell what was dangerous at the time or not. And for me, I look at his story like, oh, my goodness, that's me. I wasn't able to really tell for the longest time whether I can be of value here until I finally sit with my thoughts and realize what is happening.

Ben Jalaff [03:26:11] Why do I not feel validated or important in any scenario in this place? Because to me, on the outside, I feel like I could be of value. But whenever. And again, this comes back to that ex girlfriend of mine. The whole Mormon world was decrying me to break up with her when they didn't even know what I was feeling. I finally feel validated. Give me a break here.

Ben Jalaff [03:26:41] And then she breaks up with me and straight back to low confidence. But you know what got me to date Justina and called her a bunch of times was that ex girlfriend. Wait a minute. I already done this. I think I could do it again. I think I could do this again.

John Dehlin [03:26:56] So she helped you?

Ben Jalaff [03:26:57] Yeah, she helped immensely.

John Dehlin [03:26:59] That would give you confidence that the church would.

Justine Jalaff [03:27:01] It always annoyed me when Ben would come home and he would hang out with his friends, and he's like, oh, everyone just praises you so much, Justine. And everyone just tells me how lucky I am to be married to you. And I'm like, that's. It was not luck. You made it happen.

Ben Jalaff [03:27:18] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:27:20] You Made it happen.

John Dehlin [03:27:21] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:27:21] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:23] So that's kind of the irony. The dark irony of your Mormon experience, Ben, is that the church saves you and your family, but then in a way, kind of enslaves you to feeling less than and inferior.

Ben Jalaff [03:27:36] Yeah. And so it comes at a cost.

John Dehlin [03:27:39] They save you, but it comes at

Margi Dehlin [03:27:40] a dark cost and divides your family.

Ben Jalaff [03:27:44] Oh, it did. Since teenage years, my relationship with my parents had been shot. I mean, we're gonna get to this soon. But I had no parents. And I know they're watching this, but that's the whole truth. I had no parents. Because of how I was, my parents truly did try to steer me in the right direction. Damn it. I don't want to get emotional.

John Dehlin [03:28:10] No. Get emotional.

Ben Jalaff [03:28:13] But my parents were the only people in my life that will try to bring me value. And I never listen to them because they're not going to church.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:24] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:28:25] So I don't value their opinion because they don't have the light.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:30] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:28:30] But they're the only ones. My dad sat me down like, hey, you like Justine, but go get her. No, but what do I say? Stop, man. Go do it. He threw the keys of the car. Go get her now. Get it done. Like, he just literally, desperately like, son, you are more than this. You are more, man.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:52] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [03:28:53] And they're crying to push me to see this. Remember my dad telling me what happened to that kid that just literally could just be so confident. The kids being dead seems. Well. And you know how much it hurts him as an adult. Seeing their adult kid, their only son, just literally just not pulling his weight. And that comes down to the fact that even my friends would not even see the fact that, Ben, you are of importance. That's why Justine marry you. But instead, it was always reverted, and it always hurts. And I got to say this, people are watching this right now that know me, but it hurts. It hurt me, hurt my confidence.

Justine Jalaff [03:29:44] It put you down.

Ben Jalaff [03:29:45] It put me down.

John Dehlin [03:29:48] Yeah. Well, what a super powerful story so far. And I'm gonna do something that's a little bit old school for Mormon stories. I'm gonna end this as part one of your story. We're gonna take a little break and then we're gonna come back and do part two for lots of reasons. But I. I don't want this to be a five hour episode just because I know there'll be less people who watch it because it's so long. So what an amazing part one, Justine and Ben Halaf to your amazing Canadian Venezuelan Mormon story. I'm so Inspired. I'm so fascinated. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've loved every minute of this, these three and a half hours.

John Dehlin [03:30:37] Thank you for sharing part one of your amazing story. And we're gonna come right back. Whether, you know, we're gonna come right back for part two. It'll be next in the sequence on the podcast because we're gonna talk about. They finally get their Mormon dream. They meet each other as eternal companions. They get their Mormon marriage. What happens next? That's gonna be part two.

Margi Dehlin [03:30:57] What could possibly go wrong or right?

Ben Jalaff [03:31:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:31:01] Because you both find each other and you become your eternal companions. But there's more to the story. Is there more to the story?

Margi Dehlin [03:31:08] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:31:08] Yeah. So much more.

Ben Jalaff [03:31:09] This is funny.

Justine Jalaff [03:31:10] It's a good thing you're doing a part two, because I was like, I'm pretty sure this is way more than three hours.

Ben Jalaff [03:31:15] I feel bad. I feel bad because, like, oh, man, how do we.

Margi Dehlin [03:31:19] You take up space. Your story is something.

John Dehlin [03:31:22] Yeah. Both your stories are really powerful.

Justine Jalaff [03:31:24] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:31:25] Thanks for being vulnerable. Thanks for being honest. And this has been beautiful. And I can't wait for part two.

Justine Jalaff [03:31:32] Thanks.

Ben Jalaff [03:31:32] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:31:33] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:31:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:31:34] Margi, you good?

Margi Dehlin [03:31:37] I'm good.

John Dehlin [03:31:38] All right. All right. Thanks for joining us for part one of this epic Mormon story really quickly. Thanks to all the donors who make this podcast possible, please like and subscribe. If you're watching on Spotify or YouTube or listening or whatever, wherever you listen to or watch this episode, please like and subscribe. If you. It really helps, please comment.

John Dehlin [03:31:58] And then if you're a donor, please know that we're only able to make these episodes because of you. Ad revenue pales in comparison to just the monthly donors. So thanks for your donations. If you're not a donor, we would invite you to become donors if you value this type of content, because that's what makes this possible.

John Dehlin [03:32:19] Please make sure and check out part two. Email us mormonstoriesmail.com if you have feedback. We love your comments, you know, on YouTube or on Spotify or wherever. And also just know that just like Ben and Justine are on Mormon stories, what they did is they went to mormonstories.org, they clicked on the apply button. They applied to be on the podcast. We fell in love with their video, and that's why they're here. And we can't accept every interview. But if you feel like. If you feel inside that you have a Mormon story to tell, the way you get on is if you apply and make that video, and often we can make that happen.

John Dehlin [03:33:01] So thanks for joining us. Thanks again to you both. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible. And come right back for part two of this amazing episode with Ben and Justine Halaf. Thanks, y'. All. Thanks so much.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 2015

Introduction and Episode Preview

Ben Jalaff [00:00:00] I know that you have lied now. There's no mental gymnastics for me. For me, it's just like, no, no, no, you lie, it's over. I serve a mission. I didn't teach this. I didn't teach it.

John Dehlin [00:00:13] The church made you a liar, which is worse.

Ben Jalaff [00:00:15] I went and lied.

Justine Jalaff [00:00:17] When Ben told me that he was walking away from the church, I knew at that moment that I was losing my privilege in the church. My privilege is through my priesthood holder because as a woman in the church, I do not have the priesthood. And then I'll be that lady sitting in the ward where everyone's going to talk about her in ward council and say, what can we do to support this woman with the priesthood because her husband has left the covenant path. And I knew in that moment that is not going to be my reality in the church.

Ben Jalaff [00:00:55] For me, I couldn't be a patriarch. It just almost, almost felt like an abusive role to me. It wasn't in my DNA to be like that. She's expecting me to lead the household when I have no experience whatsoever how to do this.

Justine Jalaff [00:01:11] I internalized this messaging of prosperity gospel very hard that it's this transaction that if you do all the spiritual things, you'll be blessed financially. And I fully had faith in that. So if I'm going to make the sacrifice to have children and be a stay at home mom like I've been told they need, and that is the most noblest work I'll ever do, then the Lord will provide for Ben. Just taking that pressure off of Ben and looking at more as like us. Being a team and working together and being companions and getting rid of those gender identified roles has changed our marriage and changed our lives.

Ben Jalaff [00:01:54] I left the church because I wanted to be a better human being. The church did not allow me to do that fully. I tried very hard to fit in a society that did not give me the tools I needed to be that human being. All I wanted was just to be a better person and I couldn't attend that in the church. I couldn't attain that.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] What would cause a devout Mormon couple from Canada to start questioning the Mormon Church? Hi, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. I'm John Dehlin. I'm here with my co host Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:32] Hello.

Ben Jalaff [00:02:32] Hey Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:33] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:02:34] And we're super excited for part two of an epic Canadian Venezuelan Mormon story with Justine Halaf. Hey Justine.

Justine Jalaff [00:02:45] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] And Ben.

Ben Jalaff [00:02:46] Hi everybody.

John Dehlin [00:02:48] We just did a good three, three and a half hours in a part one of this epic story where Ben talked about growing up in Venezuela Converting to the Mormon Church, migrating to Canada. And a really intense but informative Mormon story. Growing up near Niagara Falls in Canada as a Mormon immigrant Latino in Canada.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] Super powerful story. We also learned about Justine's upbringing as a multi generational Canadian Mormon and how they both met and served Mormon missions and eventually fell in love. And a lot of really cool themes. If you haven't watched part one, go back and watch it.

John Dehlin [00:03:38] You won't regret it. Really powerful. Lots of themes about faith, about race, about socioeconomic status, about culture, about identity. You just won't regret it. So go back and watch part one. This is part two. We're going to pick up with their love story where they both just recently got home from their missions and they fall in love. And we're going to talk about how could sort of, by some accounts, an ideal Canadian Mormon marriage.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] How could this couple return missionaries ever come to start questioning Mormonism and wonder whether it was good for them after they would have probably said for so many years it was the best thing that ever happened to them. So that's what we're going to talk about in part two. And so I give you again, Ben and Justine Halaf. How y' all feeling?

Justine Jalaff [00:04:34] Good.

Ben Jalaff [00:04:36] I'm feeling great.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] Yeah?

Ben Jalaff [00:04:37] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:04:38] I mean, we just did three hours. Three and a half hours. And we're gonna do a couple more.

Justine Jalaff [00:04:42] So I drank a Coke Zero, so I'm good to go.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] All right. Are Mormons allowed to drink Coke?

Justine Jalaff [00:04:47] I never drank Coke growing up.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Oh, but you make exceptions.

Justine Jalaff [00:04:50] I drink it now. It's a new day. Yeah.

Ben and Justine's Courtship Story

John Dehlin [00:04:54] All right, so last we left off in your story, Ben, and this is. It's kind of. I'm joking, but also serious. Ben begged Justine to give him a chance in terms of, like, to date each other. And Justine, you opened up and were willing to give Ben a chance, and you simultaneously fell in love with him. So how did your Mormon story progress from there?

Justine Jalaff [00:05:23] Well, we dated for a year and I moved to Alberta for eight months and we did a year.

John Dehlin [00:05:29] Mormons never last a year. What?

Justine Jalaff [00:05:31] I wanted to finish my degree in Alberta.

John Dehlin [00:05:33] Good for you. Well, that's.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:34] Yeah. And also we didn't want to be that couple that got married in two to three months.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] So you fell in love, but then immediately you went off from Niagara Falls area to Calgary area to Edmonton to finish my degree. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:50] I had a year left.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] So what was that like to be apart when you were in love? You just fall in love.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:55] Well, see, so Ben and I only dated, like, I think three to four Weeks before I went to Alberta. Our entire relationship up until we got married was long distance. Because even when I came back from Alberta, he lived in London and I lived in Niagara Falls, just two and a half hours away. So when I lived in Edmonton, Ben diligently called me every single day.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Wow.

Justine Jalaff [00:06:24] But he was very nervous.

John Dehlin [00:06:26] Yeah, I would imagine. Ben, you would worry you'd lose her.

Justine Jalaff [00:06:29] Yeah, he did.

Ben Jalaff [00:06:29] Yeah. Multiple times. I thought she was going to call me and give me the Dear John, just, you know, she found somebody and I knew that when she moved to Alberta, she knew that she had her eyes on someone else. So that was always a worry about me, about her leaving there. That's why I call her every day that I could. But I always had that fear that, yeah, it's going to end at some point. So to some degree I was preparing myself. But I also didn't want to face that reality because I felt like, again, what do I do if this girl, if. If she breaks up with me? Right. Like, I finally have what I think I wanted for all these years and if he leaves and what do I have left? That's how I felt.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:12] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:13] And we.

John Dehlin [00:07:13] Sorry.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:13] We were just dating. We weren't engaged yet.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] Were you ever tempted to go with someone else while you were in.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:19] Yeah. Yeah, I was. This took a long time for me to admit to Ben.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:23] Oh, you know, I did.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:26] We talked about that.

John Dehlin [00:07:27] You developed feelings for someone else?

Justine Jalaff [00:07:28] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I was tempted to break up with him.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:33] Oh, yeah?

Justine Jalaff [00:07:33] Yeah, Yeah. A couple times. Because it just felt so hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:37] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:38] I'm like in the YSA scene in Edmonton.

John Dehlin [00:07:40] That's a young single adult for those who don't know.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] Yeah. And dating other Canadian.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:45] And I'm the new RM coming back. New ward. Fresh Faces. And I'm the new Fresh Face. Guys are expressing interest in me and then as soon as they. As soon as they find out that I'm in a serious relationship and then eventually when I get engaged, it's like I'm in the YSA scene, but I'm not in the YSA scene because it's all about getting married. And so even socially, the thing is, is that I had good roommates, but they were all engaged at the same time as me. So they spent pretty much, I would say, every waking hour they could with their fiance. And then there was me Skyping my fiance.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] So what was it that made you stay not break up with Ben? What was it, if you had to distill it,

Justine Jalaff [00:08:33] if I'm Being so honest, I felt bad. I didn't want to break his heart.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] You were worried about breaking his heart?

Justine Jalaff [00:08:42] Yeah. And I knew. I knew that if I broke his heart, he would step away from the church and not go through with Mormonism, or he wouldn't be able to find another Mormon girl. I carried this guilt complex, but at the same time, I also loved him, if that makes any sense.

John Dehlin [00:09:03] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:04] But I was also, like, in a YSA scene in a different province, not being able to truly be in it and just feeling so alone.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:13] Because what makes you really valuable in a YSA kind of space is actually that you can date. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:21] And that's the fun of it. And that's the whole social scene. And when you're taken, no one cares about you.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:27] Right. You'll become more invisible.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:30] And. And. And my roommates, who I could have connected with on a social level, were just wrapped up in their own engagements.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] I mean, I'm glad to hear you say you also loved him, because I just. I was having this vision in my mind of you just sacrificing yourself as a Mormon woman.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:46] No, it was this conflicting feeling of feeling that. And feeling like that pull from the YSA scene and not seeing Ben every day and having to just call and text and Skype just long distances. Like, there was another couple in that ward who did the same thing, and they ended up breaking up. Long distance is not easy, but I never felt that when I came back and was with him in person.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] So if he had been with you, it would have been pretty easy.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:16] It would have been different.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] It was just the long distance stuff. Okay, good.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:19] Yeah. And then that pull of feeling like, oh, man, I just served a mission, and I was so looking forward to coming back into this scene, and now I feel displaced once again here.

John Dehlin [00:10:31] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:33] All right.

John Dehlin [00:10:33] So you end up getting back together, and getting married takes about a year.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:38] Over Christmas, I fly back to Ontario, and Ben proposes over the Christmas break, and we actually end up going and visiting Colombia over Christmas.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Colombia?

Justine Jalaff [00:10:47] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:10:48] Which is where your parents were originally from?

Ben Jalaff [00:10:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Is that right?

Ben Jalaff [00:10:50] I took Justine back to Colombia so she can get to see the rest of the family.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] So you still had family in Colombia, even though your parents moved to Venezuela?

Ben Jalaff [00:11:00] My whole family's there right now through its entirety. Like, the only people that were in Venezuela was just my parents and I and my Uncle Rocco. But, yeah, I took her there because I thought, well, you're marrying me. It's appropriate that you meet the rest of everybody else is. Right. But that was just A brief visit. That's about it.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] Yeah. Okay. So you got engaged, went to Colombia, and then when did you get married and where.

Getting Married in the Toronto Temple

Justine Jalaff [00:11:27] So we got married in August 2012 in the Toronto Temple.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Toronto Temple. Which I've. Which I've done. I've done endowments in the Toronto Temple with my sister. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:11:35] Yeah. I do want to point out, though, is that, once again, it wasn't fair, I think, to either of us that Ben had to feel this level of desperation that he needed to call me every single day, that he needed to fear that he would lose me, that when he heard I did a temple trip, he would have anxiety because he thought I was praying about him in the temple, and maybe I'd get a different answer. And then at the same time, me being on the other side, feeling that desperation, and I don't think that that was fair.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:09] Not fair. Why?

Justine Jalaff [00:12:11] I don't think. I just don't think that was fair to him. Like I said, never should have even been in that position. When you're in a relationship, you shouldn't feel desperate to make it work. You shouldn't feel that sense of, if I don't have this, I have nothing.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] And again, we touched on this last episode, but it's basically Mormon or human culture of looking down on people, maybe of a different color or a different culture or a different language, first language, or socioeconomic status. Us, you know, as humans, we come by it honestly. But Mormons are as prone to bias or racism or bigotry.

Justine Jalaff [00:12:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:53] Or white supremacy as any culture. Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:12:55] Yeah. And just like, I think Ben felt like I was going to Alberta and I was being surrounded by native white Americans who were becoming lawyers and doctors and engineers. And here he is back home, struggling to figure out what he's going to do. And so, I don't know. Am I painting that right?

Ben Jalaff [00:13:14] Yeah, I think so. Be honest.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:16] Can I keep going?

Ben Jalaff [00:13:17] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:18] Okay. And so I think he felt, like, this level of insecurity that he was going to lose me to someone like that, which was very real, I think. But what kept me going was that we had such amazing phone conversations. Like, we just loved talking to each other.

John Dehlin [00:13:40] That's good.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:40] And we had so much fun Skyping each other. And I was like, you know what? If. If this can be so great without the physical, then I think we have something really special going. And that's what kept me going, actually, when it felt hard and it felt lonely.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:00] Sounds like you did have something special.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:03] Yeah. Okay. So you got married in Toronto.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:07] Yes. And so, funny story. So since we both served missions, we both forgot our new names.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] And it was very stressful for never Mormons. When you go through the Mormon Temple for the first time as an adult, you're assigned a new name.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sorry, people who are active will freak out that I'm saying these things.

John Dehlin [00:14:27] But so mine was Isaiah, for example,

Justine Jalaff [00:14:31] and so that was very stressful for me. And also, once again, Ben was still feeling that sense that he might still lose me at any minute. I pulled up to the temple in the car with my mom and I was bawling my eyes out because I thought, here I am, I made it to the temple, and this is such a spiritual moment for me. So I'm like crying about it. And Ben thinks I'm crying because I'm going to break up with him on the day of our wedding. Just such a level of insecurity that continues into our marriage.

Justine Jalaff [00:15:00] And so it was a very stressful day. I can't say that it was my favorite part of our marriage. Everything felt very rushed because we were delayed because of them. Oh, I have to say this. This was the first time I found out.

Justine Jalaff [00:15:17] I was so stressed about not knowing the new name because I thought it came through revelation. But what actually happened is they just called the Edmonton temple, and then they were able to find out what day I was endowed and which name I was assigned.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:30] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] And a lot of Mormons to this day don't know this. That's. They have this calendar where depending on the day you go through the temple, everyone who goes to the temple on that day in the world gets that name. So it's like if it's Tuesday, February 16, it's Roda for all the women in the world who go through the temple on that day. And it's like that. So you didn't know. You thought it was God's name for you?

Justine Jalaff [00:15:58] Yeah. And what happens, what they do is they find out what the three names were for that day, and then they tell you the three names and you have to recognize which one was yours.

John Dehlin [00:16:07] Oh, there's three in a day.

Justine Jalaff [00:16:08] Well, they gave me three names and I had to recognize it and I couldn't recognize it. So that caused me even more stress. But I think the temple worker couldn't understand why I was so emotionally worked up about it. But it's because I thought I got it through revelation and it was a special thing I had to remember. And so anyways, it's not through revelation. Yeah. So. But because we're smart. And I learned from past sibling experiences and friends experiences. We scheduled our reception for the next day, and that was so fun.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:39] Yeah, that's such a great idea.

Justine Jalaff [00:16:41] And I was.

John Dehlin [00:16:42] Why is that so great?

Justine Jalaff [00:16:43] Because I think for the first time, I felt like something was truly celebrating me and was celebrating us, and everyone was there for us. And because we grew up in the same. Because I grew up in London and then moved to Niagara Falls, and then Ben grew up in Welland and then moved to London, we had both stakes there, and it was just this big community of people who were, like, all there for us, and we all knew each other, and we, like, just ended up dancing the night away.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] It must have been a beautiful Canadian Mormon moment to have all those friends and ward members and family members from all these different wards and branches and stakes all come together to celebrate this Canadian Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:25] Yeah. And also they knew those who knew Ben, knew how long he liked me. So it was like this epic love story, and it just got celebrated.

John Dehlin [00:17:35] So happy memories.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:36] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:37] And also Ben and I like to have fun, so it was a really fun wedding.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] Nice.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:40] Sounds like it.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:41] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:42] So did you. Were you. Was part of that also that you had maybe a little window together before

Justine Jalaff [00:17:49] you had the,

Margi Dehlin [00:17:52] you know, the reception and. And inviting kind of everyone into that? Was it nice to have a pause where actually the decision you made, you're connecting with the person you made it with before, like, having all the people.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:08] It was just nice not being exhausted because you had gone to the temple in Toronto and then traveled another two and a half hours to go back to Niagara Falls to have the wedding in the church chapel.

John Dehlin [00:18:19] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:20] And you're exhausted. I like the reason I did that. I know myself. I get. I do not do well when I'm hangry, when I'm tired. Yeah, I know. I was like. And I want this for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:29] I love.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:30] I deserve this.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:31] I love that you had that insight.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:33] I know some family members felt awkward about it because everyone knew what we did the night before, but I didn't care.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:40] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:41] That's great.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:42] Anything you want to share about the wedding? No, no.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:46] It was well versed by Justine. She pretty good.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] It was a good, good, good experience for you overall.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:51] I had a good time for years.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:52] People said it was the best reception.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:54] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:54] I don't want to be vain, but I think it was just that sense of community and camaraderie and these two youth that everyone watched growing up and

John Dehlin [00:19:02] coming together, but also talking about, like, the Mormon checklist. The number one item on the Mormon checklist is a temple marriage. By far. There is no bigger item on the checklist. This was accomplishing that. And for you, Ben, who probably was always worried you would not accomplish that, how was it for you?

Ben Jalaff [00:19:24] It was like a way. It was like a way lift up my shoulders. Because I truly love Justine. I had eyes for her since she was a teenager. I also consider that to be a huge miracle for me as well. Just seeing the person that I truly wanted and finally achieving that was great. It was. I still. It's such a special day. The fact that that first night, not for the other reasons, but just to wake up next to her, knowing that I don't have to travel anymore to see her. But now it's done. I'm with the one I love, and that's it. It was just such a. One of the best moments of my life was that. That day for sure.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] So it's happily ever after then, right? It's.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:11] Well, I have to say, everyone's like, the first year of your marriage is gonna be so hard. And I was like, it doesn't feel hard. It's fun.

John Dehlin [00:20:18] The first year was good.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:21] We didn't have a hard time living with each other.

John Dehlin [00:20:23] You were kind of besties.

Ben Jalaff [00:20:25] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:25] Cause we already had that foundation of friendship, and we already knew each other and who each other was because of

John Dehlin [00:20:30] that year of Skype. Courtship.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:32] Yeah. But I do have to say that we did know each other, but also didn't know each other. So I didn't understand Ben's skill set, and I don't think I necessarily understand his strengths when it came to career. And so I was.

Ben Jalaff [00:20:52] Oh.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:52] And I also had, like, this expectation of what he needed to do, and it always involved education because I was always taught growing up, you need a degree to succeed or at least, like, something. Which is true in a lot of ways. But no.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] Mormon men become dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, business people. Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:12] So Ben had. Ben had gone to college to try and become a police officer, and he probably would have ended up being a really good police officer, and he would have gotten in no problem, because especially in London, they like taking Latino people, and they're looking for that representation. And I told them when we were dating that I didn't want him to do it, and so he stopped. And so.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] And that's not. I mean, not to associate on you, but that's an honorable profession. Law enforcement.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:42] Yeah. But it scared me, and I was like, I don't want you doing that.

John Dehlin [00:21:45] It's not typical Mormon career path for a Mormon man. Right. Is that it or was it?

Justine Jalaff [00:21:52] Not for me.

John Dehlin [00:21:53] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:53] Because we do have a friend who's Mormon who's. I know a few Mormons who are police officers.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] Yeah. I mean, I know they exist, but none of my friends.

Justine Jalaff [00:22:01] It's not the typical. What I had in mind is like, I want to marry an engineer.

John Dehlin [00:22:05] So I was like, okay, a white collar professional.

Justine Jalaff [00:22:07] So, like, Ben was always, like, played baseball very seriously and was always very into athletics and sports. So I was like, let's get you into. So you can become like an assistant physiotherapist and we'll get you into this college and we'll get you into this program or let's get you into this degree and let's figure this out for you.

Justine Jalaff [00:22:27] Meanwhile, he didn't have like the high school grades because he was in ESL and still learning English. And so that didn't prepare him to get into these competitive programs that get you these type of jobs. And so we were constantly, always racking our brain and it was Ben, this insecurity again, Always wanting to make me happy, always wanting to please me, wanting to be what he felt like I needed from him or I wanted from him. And then me being like, maybe you should do this, maybe you should do this. And just like not being able to figure it out.

John Dehlin [00:23:01] But the stakes were extra high because as you mentioned in the last episode, you were gonna become a Mormon housewife and have lots of babies, so you weren't gonna be providing. And so he needed to have a good enough income to provide for the entire family with lots of children on his own as a provider. Right? Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:23:19] And at the time, I always imagined myself having six children.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:24] Okay, Was this something that you actually talked about openly? That you wanted to stay at home and.

Justine Jalaff [00:23:31] Okay, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:32] And have a lot of children?

Ben Jalaff [00:23:34] Yeah, we talked about that.

Justine Jalaff [00:23:36] I don't even know if we talked about it. It was just what was going to happen.

Ben Jalaff [00:23:39] It was just the expectation. It was actually what we could perceive already by seeing other couples. For me, it was nerve wracking because I knew for a fact that I was ill prepared to just actually lead the household simply because obviously the education aspect of it was a problem.

Early Marriage and Career Struggles

Ben Jalaff [00:23:55] It wasn't my fault. It was just, I'm an immigrant, I'm trying to figure out career path and also my English not being the greatest when I supposed to me making these decisions. The problem also was that this role plays in me that I have to be the patriarch of My home, where in my culture, the woman is the hammer.

Ben Jalaff [00:24:18] Right. My mom is the hammer of my household. I saw my mom making the tough decisions and my dad following. And my dad always taught me something that this is a lesson that I will always mention to people. My dad is like, woman here, men here. You got to get up there. Okay. That's how I learned. And all of a sudden, I'm supposed to be up here leading while the woman is here. So culturally, I'm like, well, I don't know how to do this, because I always learned that women here, men here, and then we get to that point and both together do it. So that's also.

Ben Jalaff [00:24:52] She's expecting me to lead the household when I have no experience whatsoever how to do this. And even when I was an active Mormon, I'm still not gluing into the fact that I. Even when I want to get married and do this, I'm not thinking, oh, wait, I'm the one that needs to lead this with the priesthood and career and all of that. And that was a shortcoming thing for me because I wasn't. It wasn't in my DNA to be like that, which was something that I feel Justine was expecting. But for me, I couldn't be a patriarchy. It just almost. Almost felt like an abusive role to me.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:27] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:25:27] And you were already put at a disadvantage because you served a mission. Like, you're an immigrant to a new. Not even. You're a refugee. You eventually become a citizen. You're a displaced person. English is your second language. You struggle with that language. You don't have any parental support or guidance in the education system because they're in flight or flight survival mode, and they don't even. They don't even understand the education system themselves. So you're just being put in all the bird classes to just get you through high school. And then. And then instead of going to college to upgrade and take your time figuring out what you can do with your skill set and your disadvantage, like a lot of immigrants do, instead he goes and works at a quail farm for a year, serves a mission for two years, and then comes home and has to work and make money again.

John Dehlin [00:26:17] Pest control, sales.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:18] That's four to five years. That's an entire degree plus a master's.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:23] Like. And then all of a sudden, he gets home from his. Sorry, I'm angry about this. He gets home from his mission, and he's told, no, no, no. The number one thing you need to worry about is getting married.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:32] That's Right. Have a. Get a. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:35] But at the same time, you also need to provide for three to four to five to six children and a wife who stays home.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:41] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:41] How is that possible?

Margi Dehlin [00:26:43] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:44] And me, I just didn't have the brain to even, like, comprehend this struggle because that was part of Ben that I didn't know. And also, that wasn't an experience I understood at the time, that struggle. And so I was just like, we gotta get you into this college. We gotta figure this out. And so we actually ended up making. Moving to Alberta, and I ended up getting pregnant at the same time for Ben to go do a trade in electric. Electrical trade. To become an electrician. And him and his desperation wanting to do everything is like, okay, let's go. Meanwhile, I'm not even understanding, like, actually, like, he's not very good at math. And so we go.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] And electricians need to be good at math.

Justine Jalaff [00:27:27] Yeah. Like, at least at the beginning, like, he has a math phobia. Like, he has, like, intense issues.

Ben Jalaff [00:27:34] I just always wanted to please Justine, everything Justine said, because here I am with my confidence still low. Like, I cannot afford to upset my wife. I cannot afford to tell her what I really, truly want, because I don't want to risk anything.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] Which was what?

Ben Jalaff [00:27:47] Which was, you know, I wanted to work. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I saw that as a good opportunity. I also wanted to be a cop, you know, because I felt like it was a cool career. I talked to someone already, and they told me at college, because I was going to police foundations, and they told me, what are you doing here? You're a Latina, you can get a job. I went through training and I went through the late stages of getting a career in policing. And Justine said no. So when she makes that decision, what I'm thinking is, I cannot risk really speaking of what I truly want, because, number one, I don't know exactly what I want yet, because I haven't figured it out.

Ben Jalaff [00:28:25] And at the same time, I don't want to disappoint her, you know, because to me, I just. I got something so great. I married a woman of my life. I cannot afford to screw this. So every decision she made, I had to, yeah, sure, we'll do this, we'll do that.

Justine Jalaff [00:28:42] And I also want to say, at the same time, I had zero motivation to get a career. So I was the one with the degree. I was the one who could have gotten into teachers college and become a teacher with the salary job.

Justine Jalaff [00:28:55] Well, Ben could have taken his time to Figure this out. But I ended up working part time at the same job I worked at as a teenager with zero motivation, sleeping 13 hour nights in our dark basement suite apartment and just thinking, I'm just gonna get pregnant.

Justine Jalaff [00:29:12] And we just have to figure this out for Ben. So what happens? I get pregnant eight months into the marriage and then we irrationally, like super quickly just make this quick decision. Let's go to Alberta and get you a trade.

Justine Jalaff [00:29:27] We go to Alberta. Economy is very good at the time. We both got a job within a week. He got a job in a warehouse and I got a job at an office and I worked there till my maternity. And he's doing really well in this warehouse.

Justine Jalaff [00:29:41] But because it wasn't a career job, in my mind, it's like, no, you gotta search for this opportunity to become an electrician, at least get a trade so that you have job security and we don't have to worry about you putting in 20 years at a warehouse and then all of a sudden getting fired and then having nothing left.

Ben Jalaff [00:29:59] That is when, that's when things started to get figured out for me. Because that warehouse job taught me that, hey, I could do this. And people in the warehouse is, they're validating me. They're actually giving positional leadership in this warehouse. You know, I'm getting paywell. That's when I started to figure it out, like, oh, this is what I'm good at. I think I would like to tag after this. But then again, the perception of career, you know, of having this career with title. I quit the warehouse job and I put myself in this position as an electrician. And that's when things just again dies down again.

Ben Jalaff [00:30:31] I'm not very good, as sad as that sounds. I'm not good at what. Mathematically, I am terrible at it and I couldn't succeed. I brought me back down again when I felt like in the warehouse. I finally feel like I'm getting validated. I'm good at this. But then Justine has this mindset that career, career, career.

Justine Jalaff [00:30:49] So. And also that if we're going to be depending on one income, it needs to be a job where I can feel secure in. And a warehouse doesn't make me feel secure.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:00] Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:00] Even though in Alberta actually this warehouse was like, it was piping.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:04] Yeah, it was a piping company, had a union.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:07] He probably would have been fine.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:09] It would have been fine.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:09] He probably would have moved up to like manager position and made like 80 grand a year and then I could have worked and we would have been just fine. But because I wasn't gonna work and I was gonna stay home, I was pregnant. He needed to find a career.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:24] Career.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:25] And I would add to that is also growing up with the gender roles of my family. My parents sometimes will question that I can Justine work? You know, you can work and Justine can work and together you guys financially provide.

John Dehlin [00:31:36] That's how the rest of the world works.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:38] You know, that's so logical.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:39] My parents are actually telling me this, like she could work. Doesn't she have like a degree? My parents thought that she was a teacher. Like she can go work and you work and together you'll be fine. We'll be fine. But then yet we're struggling. And it's almost feels self induced to my parents view, like this has a solution if you listen.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:58] And I also want to throw in like I put so much trust into that transaction. We talked about that. If I'm putting eternal choices first. I served a mission. I did everything that was ever asked of me. I'm choosing to be a mom. I will be blessed financially.

John Dehlin [00:32:18] The Lord is bound.

Justine Jalaff [00:32:19] The Lord was bound to me. And the Lord will find a way for Ben to provide and will be just fine. And I have the faith that everything will work out for us because we're doing everything we're supposed to do. And I internalized this messaging of prosperity Gospel very hard that it's this transaction that if you do all the spiritual things, you'll be blessed financially. And like that was also taught to me. Like I internalized the elder Holland talk where he was like driving with his family and then his car kept breaking down because they were so poor that they couldn't fix it. And he talks about, just stay in there, keep the faith because it will get better.

Justine Jalaff [00:33:03] You know, me and my family were poor, but. And we had these really hard times, but we had the faith and the Lord will provide base type messaging. And I fully had faith in that. So if I'm going to make the sacrifice to have children and be a stay at home mom like I've been told they need, and that is the most noblest work I'll ever do, then the Lord will provide for Ben.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:29] Right? Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:30] If I can just add one just quick observation that I learned growing up in Texas, there were a lot of, you know, I had white friends, I had African American friends, I had Hispanic friends. It is, I think it's natural to view someone whose first language isn't English to be just obviously less intelligent because, you know, the smartest people speak English the best. And so they're gonna seem the most intelligent. And if somebody's speaking what you perceive as broken English, well, they can't be as smart. And that's. I'm not saying it's even conscious, but that's a thing. Then you.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:09] Are you saying that's an assumption?

John Dehlin [00:34:11] Yeah, it's a bad. It's a wrong. Harmful. I've seen that perception, and I'm just. I'm endorsing it as I had to deal with that. But then where it really came to light for me is like, I'll be in a cab somewhere in New York or wherever, and I'll meet some immigrant and they'll say, oh, I was a lawyer in my home country, or I was a doctor in my home country. And I'd be like, wait, you were a lawyer, a doctor or engineer and you're driving a cab now? And they're like, yeah, because the licenses don't transfer. And then you come here and English is your second language.

John Dehlin [00:34:51] And you don't just jump into an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor job, even if you were super intelligent and well respected. And I think I would add, people think you're not as smart because English is your second language, not your first. And this is just. It's just a cultural dynamic that I'm admitting that is awful.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:13] An aspect of racism and harmful.

Justine Jalaff [00:35:15] And it exists in Canada.

John Dehlin [00:35:17] Yeah. That people. And so again, this is all the type of stuff that you would have to deal with for no fault of your own. Right. Because how many. If a bunch of white people went to Venezuela or Panama and tried to have successful careers? Some might do well, but a lot of them probably won't, you know what I mean? Because it's. How would they do well in a totally different country with a totally different language? No context, no connections, you know, and if you did do well, it would likely because English and American culture, you know, colonized so many places that there are benefits to knowing English. But again, it wouldn't be because those white people are necessarily in any way smarter. And I just. I just want to call that out because that's. I don't know, it just feels relevant.

Ben Jalaff [00:36:08] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:36:08] I can't even imagine having to do that. And I've seen Ben's parents, and they literally rose themselves up from the dirt.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:18] Up.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:36:19] Through sheer grit, hard work and resilience. But they both had to do it.

Ben Jalaff [00:36:26] I saw it in Venezuela, too. In Venezuela, my dad moved and was a bus driver, sold hot dogs, sold coffee in the streets, and then found a factory Job that paid well. And after that, he had enough money to open a liquor store in Puerto La Cruz. Liquor store took off. Then he became a merchant. I seen my dad done some things with my mom that is remarkable in a third world country, to come to Canada and to do it without English. Where they're at right now is I can only imagine if they spoke English well, where they will go. Because right now they live well with their broken English, where they will be if they actually spoke.

Ben Jalaff [00:37:04] And the reason why they don't speak English is because of what we learned when we first came to the country. Be careful with the Canadian government. They're gonna offer you money, but it could work against you in court. When you have that court hearing, they're gonna look at, they took money and they didn't do anything. My dad quit the money from the government two weeks into it and got jobs. That's why he couldn't learn English, because he was constantly working and to the point where he's suffering now because his grandkids don't speak Spanish. But I look at it now, they go places with the little that they had. And that's a remarkable thing.

Justine Jalaff [00:37:42] They have a nicer house than we do.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] One more thing I just want to admit and own, and I just want my fellow, I don't know, white people to think about is growing up in Texas, there was a really awful stereotype around Hispanics. Now, admitted, I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Houston. I don't know if these stereotypes still exist, but there was a term for Hispanic immigrants in Texas, and it's a really offensive term. Do you know what term I'm about to say?

Ben Jalaff [00:38:17] I think spics, maybe.

John Dehlin [00:38:19] Well, that was one, but there was another one, and it's going to be offensive. Wetback. You ever heard that term?

Ben Jalaff [00:38:26] Yeah, I heard it.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:27] And what it implies? It was a derogatory term that implied they came to Texas by, what, swimming over the Rio Grande to get to Texas from Mexico. And there was just a cultural assumption that Latinos or Hispanics were lazy.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:47] You said that, but in Canada, I actually heard things too. Not to that degree, but I will heard things like, you know, oh, where are you from? Oh, from Venezuela also. You swam all the way here? No, idiot, I took a plane. You know, like, things like that. Because they are associating people from Cuba taking a canoe to get to the coast of Florida. Yeah, but that to them, they associate every culture into one singular thing. Or you slum here. You know how many times I heard that? My country doesn't have computers. Yeah, things like that from people like we have computers. Like, what makes you think we don't have computers? It's just those levels. And you mentioned that we have it in Canada. Oh, we do. We have it in Canada.

John Dehlin [00:39:30] Okay. And then the other, only other realization I had is when immigrants come here, they take these jobs like working at farms or working on construction. And I just admit that I viewed those jobs as being inferior. And I had to sit with those stereotypes of immigrants being lazy.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] But it took me just a little bit of thought to realize these are jobs that most white Americans wouldn't last a day, a day in, not for any other reason, but that they're so challenging, so hard that we wouldn't have the character to last a day.

John Dehlin [00:40:25] So the opposite was true. These weren't lazy people. These were some of the hardest working, highest integrity, most determined, ethical people. But somehow, because of immigrant bias, anti immigrant bias, or racism, I would sit with these perceptions that were the opposite of true. And I just wanted, I want to call that out. I want to own it. And especially right now, not getting political, but right now I think this notion of immigrant bias and perceptions is as relevant in 2025 as it's ever been.

Ben Jalaff [00:41:07] It is. It happened just in Detroit when we're coming here. I met a couple from Nicaragua. I asked them, hey, where are you from? And they totally lied to me. Oh, we're from Florida. I just listened to you in Spanish because people are trying to protect themselves now because I felt their fear when I found out. Are you guys speaking Spanish? And I didn't glue into the fact like, this is what's happening right now. You know, that fear mongering that is going on right now. I can see it in their faces.

John Dehlin [00:41:33] So, yeah, and that's a whole different thing now. It's all immigrants came from either prison or were felons or were in mental institutions. That's a whole new thing for me. It was, they're all lazy, they swam over the river. But it's, it's all awful. And I just want to call that

Experiences with Racism and Refugees

Justine Jalaff [00:41:56] just people leaving war torn countries, escaping with their lives, trying to make a better life for their children, being culturally displaced and trying to start over in a brand new country with a brand new language, plus carrying all of their trauma, and yet we have this prejudice going on.

Ben Jalaff [00:42:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:16] Yeah. I had to just. Yeah. Thank you for helping me just address that.

Justine Jalaff [00:42:21] Yeah, it needs to be addressed.

Life as a Young Mormon Couple in Canada

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Okay, so I guess tell us anything else you want to tell about your early Mormon Marriage. That's important. Before we start talking about the cracks emerging in your respective Mormon testimonies, I'd

Justine Jalaff [00:42:39] like to talk about motherhood for a little bit. And I think us struggling financially played a big part in that. Just feeling like I was very lucky, as in, I had easy pregnancies and I had easy labors and I had very healthy children and I don't suffer from mental health. I'm so lucky. And my body snapped back physically so fast. But I felt so lost in motherhood. Like, I felt like when you're taught that being a mother is a role and that being mother is an identity, but also that being a mother is a spiritual calling from God and the highest calling. And the highest calling because the, the prophets and apostles, they praise motherhood like crazy because they want to make you feel good that you don't have the priesthood. Right.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] That you're a second class citizen.

Justine Jalaff [00:43:38] Yeah. They tell you you're so wonderful, we could never be like you.

Ben Jalaff [00:43:41] You.

Justine Jalaff [00:43:42] You've got the noblest, most important calling. And look at us dudes who need the priesthood to serve. Right? But like, as a result of that, so many girls and women internalize that motherhood is an identity. Motherhood is a gender role. Motherhood is everything that's going to make you feel purposeful and happy in the church. And when that doesn't feel that way, you think there's something wrong with you. You think that you're failing in some way. And like, there would be moments I didn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't understand why there would be moments where, because Ben was the one I would vent to and I would just burst into tears around him being like, what am I good for?

Justine Jalaff [00:44:29] Like, why do I feel like I have nothing to offer? What outside of motherhood, do you. Do I have to offer the world? Like, basically questioning, like, who am I? I don't even know who I am. Well, like, just sobbing to him and like, thinking, well, I'm a mother. Why is that not enough? Yeah, but for me it, it was because later on, and we'll get into my deconstruction when I started following Julie Hanks, that this is her mantra. Motherhood is a relationship. It is not a role and it is not an identity.

Justine Jalaff [00:45:04] But I thought it was, overall, I thought it was an identity. And. And then you bring in the complexity of needing to teach the gospel in your home and that it's on your shoulders as a parent to help your children have a testimony. And feeling that constant mom guilt over and over and over again, feeling like you're just not doing enough, you're not being enough, and somehow you're just constantly failing. And I just felt that so much, and that was really hard for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:37] Yeah. Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:45:39] And then at the same time, still trying to find out how can my husband provide? And at the same time, seeing my friends being comfortable financially, and it's that security complex in me that I had, like, hang on. I did all the things. I served the mission. This could sound so rude, but, like, you didn't serve a mission. You weren't as strong as me, but yet you're sitting comfortable in your. Your big house with your children, and. And I'm in this rental stressing every day about what's gonna happen.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:14] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:14] And just feeling that so hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:17] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think. I mean, I relate to a lot of what you're saying, especially, you know, coming home from your mission. I remember. Didn't you say something like you felt like you didn't.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:32] There was an erasure.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:34] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:34] And the motherhood was another erasure.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:36] Yes. And I think that's the challenge of it, is where is the space in Mormonism's formula for women to actually come into their own, to have this sense of, like, you know, discovering themselves, developing themselves.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:54] I have to say, I've seen my friends try to do that, and I've seen them being put down by their husbands. That this is taking you away from the children. Right. I've seen that in multiple relationships, and it makes me so sad because I was very lucky that I always had a husband who told me, you want to do that? Go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:14] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:14] Like, I'll support you no matter what.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:16] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:17] You want to be this, you want to be that? Because there was a time where I was like, maybe I want to blog. Maybe I want to do this. Just something I was like, oh, but we don't. Money and. No, just go do it. If it makes you happy. If it fulfills you. He would. Ben would always tell me, go, do. And then I have friends who are like, oh, no. My husband said no. Yeah, he doesn't want me to. And then you're like, that's. Where is the space? Because it will take you away from the children because your husband's working long hours on his career.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:47] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:48] And I personally think that the space only happens from those women who make it happen and fight for it to happen. And I give kudos to those women in the church who are able to do that, because I wasn't able to do that.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:01] Yeah, yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:48:03] And I don't know how they do it, but I give you all the validation.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:07] Yep. I think this comes up a lot, too, with grief sometimes for women who end up having children when they're still kind of in a place of a conditioned mindset, and then later, when they leave the church, they realize, well, I made that choice, but it wasn't a conscious choice to have children or have five children, and I likely would have had two or if I had been in connection with myself and my ability and my desire and how I, you know, kind of showing up. And I think this is a really tough thing to grapple with, this idea of choice. But I was in a conditioned place when I made this choice. And it's almost like the life not lived in a way, but you're grappling with the consequences.

Justine Jalaff [00:48:57] And I was recently told by a. Sorry, I was recently told by a sibling because I was expressing just a hint of frustration that I'm feeling right now trying to find a career, that I shouldn't be resentful because I didn't want it. And I'm like, no, it's not that I didn't want it. I just was never given the tools to ask myself what I wanted.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:20] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:49:21] And I was told what I should want, and I was told what I should do to thrive here and be happy and fulfill my purpose.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:28] Yes.

Justine Jalaff [00:49:30] But no, it's not that I didn't want it. I just didn't. I was just doing what I was told, what I was told I should want.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:37] That's right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:40] Go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:40] Oh, this idea of informed consent, we talk about it a lot on Mormon stories, and a lot of times it's with truth claims. But I really feel strongly informed consent when it comes to, you know. And I realized within Mormonism, this idea of choosing to be a mother, it's questionable at best when you're, you know, told how you have value, and there's really only one way to have value. But ideally, informed consent for motherhood. Understand how what we ask our bodies to do when we become pregnant, when we deliver a baby, that for many bodies, they're never the same after that. For many women's mental health, they're never the same after that.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:26] Looking at a marriage to fully understand that when you look at happiness or contentment charts when it comes to partnerships, that there are serious dips when you introduce children. Like, it's a different thing when you know what you're choosing and your why and you're feeling like, I Think with all that. I still want it. That's just a very different thing than the way we. We come about our realities as women in Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [00:50:57] And it's very complex because obviously you love your children.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:00] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:01] So much.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:02] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:03] You want to give them everything, but you also have to be like, but what about me? I matter too. And I felt like in order to be a good mom, I had to give them everything, but there was nothing left for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:18] Right, that's right. I think that's part of the conditioning too though, is that the way we love is oftentimes to give of ourselves as opposed to the way we love is to actually honor ourselves as human beings, as moms, and that our children get to watch us do that. And we care for them too. But we don't do it at the cost of caring for ourselves, though.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:45] And I did. I did it at the cost of caring for myself.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:48] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:49] Because I didn't have the capacity to do both. I can only carry so much.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:54] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:51:55] Maven's making the point that to really have a choice, then all the options have to be okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:02] That's right. Equal value. We have equal value no matter what we choose. And that just is not the case.

John Dehlin [00:52:08] And then also she made the point that she and others are told that it's selfish in vain to want to pursue things that feel right to you if they're not motherhood. Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:52:21] I was told that I was. I did have that narrative that it was selfish to not want less than two to three children. To want less than two to three children, that's selfish. Or like, there was just a lot of pride in having the big Mormon family. And then I also, like, yeah, like, I remember walking with someone and their sister in law had left the church and divorced their brother and she was living her life. And that person told me she's just being selfish.

Justine Jalaff [00:52:51] It's like, so it's selfish for women to want to do something for themselves away from their children. Why is that selfish? We are people too. But I just feel like in Mormonism, motherhood just becomes this identity that women in the church don't know how to get out of.

Justine Jalaff [00:53:15] They don't know how to escape it and like, and let go of those feelings. Like, no, it's not selfish for me to have a hobby, for me to have a career, to put my kids in daycare, to let my husband be with my children. That's not selfish. And for me, I just could never let Ben play the role of being the dad, that's, that was the primary caregiver. I was always the primary caregiver. He was always secondary. And that pressure was always on me.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:44] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:53:45] You need to be there for the children. They need you more. You're the nurturer, he's the provider.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:52] And I've mentioned this before in past episodes, but there are some women who, if they even want to be mothers, they're going to actually be better mothers if they have a career. In other words, for some people, maybe a career would get in the way of being the best mom. For other women, they will be their best mom when they have a career.

Justine Jalaff [00:54:17] 150%.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:19] And children benefit. They benefit from seeing their moms actually live a fully embodied, self aware life where they're actually aware of what they need and they're meeting their needs. Like children benefit from that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:38] And with the economy the way it is today, in 2025, what woman, what Mormon woman is going to grow up and not need to be a financial provider for the family? Why wouldn't it be good for them to see their moms be financial providers as role models? Because they're certainly getting to be financial providers.

Justine Jalaff [00:54:59] Maybe your mom can stay home comfortably because her husband is a successful lawyer, doctor, entrepreneur, but who's to say that your daughter is not going to have to go and work? And I'm not saying that women have to have that pressure to go work just because they need to be an example to their daughter. But I think it is healthy to show them multiple avenues.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:20] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:21] And, and possibilities. And for me, I, I had this weird mix of being a stay home mom is so crucial in the early years and then eventually you'll go and get a career.

John Dehlin [00:55:36] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:38] So it wasn't completely erased getting a career, but that came once your youngest is in kindergarten or something.

John Dehlin [00:55:44] But that's Canadian. That's not Utah Mormonism, by the way.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:48] Yeah. That's maybe Canadians being a little more free or realistic.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] And it's more expensive. Canada is a little more expensive than the U.S. yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:57] Well, my, my mom, when I'm the youngest, so when I was grade 7 8, she went to college and learned how to use a computer. And then, and then when I was in high school, she got a diploma and became a library technician. And then when I was in university, she was in her mid-50s and she went to teachers college and became a teacher and then retired as a teacher. And that was what I thought I would eventually do, which is actually what I'm doing now.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:31] Thank you for sharing that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:32] Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Okay, so before we start talking about the cracks developing, your respective Mormon testimonies or faith, were there any number of years where you both felt super good, like you were living the Mormon dream after your marriage?

Ben Jalaff [00:56:53] Yeah, we were.

John Dehlin [00:56:54] What I was expecting at least a couple years.

Justine Jalaff [00:56:56] We were trying really hard to live the Mormon dream.

John Dehlin [00:57:00] What was not working?

Justine Jalaff [00:57:02] Our finances.

John Dehlin [00:57:03] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:04] Honestly, there would be times that we would just be talking in the car and we'd be like, everything would be amazing if we just had money. Like, our life, our marriage is great. Our kids are awesome. We just need money. Like, literally, that's how it felt.

John Dehlin [00:57:19] And you mentioned both of you coming off your missions, thinking the Lord would provide kind of the prosperity gospel, lord is bound kind of thing.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:28] Yeah. So I just thought it will come eventually. We're putting in our time.

John Dehlin [00:57:32] Yeah. It's like both of you, with your missions and marriage, you're just waiting for the payoff. What was the phrase you used about payoff or something? Something from your mission, Ben, get the cheese. Get the cheese. You were waiting for the Mormon cheese and you got the Mormon marriage, and the Mormon cheese didn't come.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:46] And we kept seeing people get the Mormon cheese.

Ben Jalaff [00:57:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:49] We never got the Mormon cheese.

Ben Jalaff [00:57:51] That's the thing that kind of bothered me is like, what is it that I'm doing now in my marriage that is not leading me to a success now? Right. Like, obviously, it's another layer in my life that kind of feels like is failing again. Right. And I'm not looking at who's guilty yet, but I'm certainly starting to feel like the more and more I run on this car wheel. How much longer you want me to do this? You gotta tell me. Hey, look, after 20 minutes, you get off the cartwheel and you lost two pounds. Good. That's the payoff. I just keep doing this with Mormonism. I'm not paying attention yet that that's what's happening. But I'm starting to feel exhausted, that no matter how much I push, I'm starting to feel like, where's the end goal?

Margi Dehlin [00:58:36] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:58:36] And Mormonism doesn't tell you an end goal. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:58:40] The end goal is after you die.

Ben Jalaff [00:58:43] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:43] The payoff was our beautiful children, which

John Dehlin [00:58:46] you could have and not be Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:47] Exactly. But that's how we felt.

John Dehlin [00:58:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:50] Like, for me, I'm just like, eternal perspective. I'm going to be with this family when I die, constantly telling myself, eternal perspective, eternal blessings. Look for the blessings. Now there's a blessing in every situation. Trial and tribulation. We gotta learn something from this without actually just, like, analyzing. Maybe I should just, like, go work, and that would, like, really help things.

Running on the Mormon Treadmill

John Dehlin [00:59:15] Okay, so you started to get tired, running on the Mormon treadmill, wondering when you're gonna get the cheese? Yeah, wasn't coming.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:24] I think what it's leading up to is once I get married, it always goes back to the well and experience, to what I'm experiencing now outside of all of it. Like the example that I gave you guys. I got the main meal first, and then nothing good came after that. I think my Mormon dream happened when I was a teenager, and then as an adult, I couldn't see it in any other war that I'm going to. I'm not experiencing the same level of welcoming.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:53] You couldn't recapture it.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:54] The same level of validation that the people from Welland gave me, the leadership, the trust. Nothing was working to the point where I started to become exhausted and I started to overanalyze things. I'm starting to listen to things that maybe I'm not supposed to listen. You know, One of those things was my children. Once I'm starting to see my children come into my life, I started to ask myself, do I want my son to confess to a bishop that he has a pornography problem? That's when I start asking questions. Do I want my daughter, who has anxiety and ocd, had to face a bishop for whatever mistake she made?

Ben Jalaff [01:00:32] Same with my other son. That's the things that start grinding me now because I went through it. The anxiety levels of committing sin and not feeling like I fit. That's when things start grinding on me a little bit, to the point where my cracks started to show on my mission. But as a father, I started to see I'm running a lot. Do I want to get my kids to get on the treadmill on the hamster wheel again like me and run forever?

Ben Jalaff [01:01:01] That's when I started feeling a little bit. Then the LGTBQ thing started happening where I have a worker. The company that used to work, now I own it, and he's gay. And he comes to me and says, ben, how come, you know, when I talk to you about me being gay, you're so welcoming and you seem to be okay. But then the owner of the time of the company, who was also a member, didn't have the same view of that, and he felt odd about it. And I remember I couldn't answer that. Like, I just love everybody, regardless of what the church teaches. I couldn't explain it to him.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] You loved him in spite of the church.

Ben Jalaff [01:01:38] Yeah. And to me, that's something that is starting to feel weird in my insides. Why do I have to explain this to people where I don't feel this way? I started to become exhausted to the point that Justine, one day, she asked me, ben, what happens if one of our kids is gay? I told her without hesitation, I'll leave the church with them because of what had happened to that investigator on my mission.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:06] Right.

Ben Jalaff [01:02:06] My intuition told me once that it was wrong if I see now my own kin going through that. For me, it's individual. I know some people make this choice to support their children and stay in the church. For me, I felt like I cannot tell my child that I love them and support them 100% when I'm in an organization that doesn't do the same for them. How can I do that? That's what started. And then Jeffrey R. Holland comes with this beautiful talk at BYU about the musket fire thing.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:43] Oh, are you being sarcastic?

Justine Jalaff [01:02:44] Yeah, he's being sarcastic.

Ben Jalaff [01:02:46] Incredibly sarcastic.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:47] Because.

John Dehlin [01:02:48] Okay, so when he gave that talk, you were still orthodox believer?

Ben Jalaff [01:02:51] I was still believing. And I remember the talk kept coming up on my social media outlets, and I'm not clicking because, again, trying to protect myself, till one day I clicked on it and I listened to the whole thing, and I went straight to Justine and said, what the hell is this? This is an apostle saying these things.

John Dehlin [01:03:12] This is four years ago.

Ben Jalaff [01:03:13] Yeah. This is an apostle saying all these things. Wait a second. I don't know if this is feeling good now.

John Dehlin [01:03:19] And for those who don't know, basically Jeff Holland, one of the top ranking Mormon apostles, gave a speech at BYU where he had been president. I was at byu, and he was president of byu. But he basically tells BYU faculty and staff, we're being. I'm using my words, not his. We're being too friendly to gay and lesbian Mormons. We need more musket fire. We need BYU staff and faculty to oppose same sex marriage, even though it's been legalized. And we need to be tough, you know, and defend what I would say is religious bigotry, defend our homophobia against lgbtq.

John Dehlin [01:04:01] And he also denounced a valedictorian, a gay valedictorian who came out. His name was Matt Easton. He came out in his valedictorian speech as gay. And then Elder Holland, an apostle of the church, denounced Matt Easton and said that was a really bad thing to do to grandstand in a graduation speech. And come out as gay. So it was a. It was a very homophobic thing for a man, anyone, to do. But for a leader of a global $300 billion church to do that, it was. It was violent and mean. And I would say most people I know believe it tarnished Apostle Geoffrey Holland's legacy, whereas he was viewed favorably generally by thoughtful Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:04:52] Now he knows that he ruined and tarnished his own legacy, painting himself as a bigot. And as I understand it, his health, physical health, crashed and has never recovered since the backlash because it got so bad that he was asked to give a graduation speech at, I think, Southern Utah University. And there was so much public protest that, you know, he ended up not giving that speech, claiming it was health problems.

Ben Jalaff [01:05:26] But no.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:27] Anyway, he was the general authority that Ben looked forward to hearing the most at General Conference. Yeah, I like that so many of us felt that way. Oh, it's Elder Holland. Get ready for it.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] He's one of the good ones, you know?

Ben Jalaff [01:05:38] Yeah, he was very animated. I think he spoke my language of being bold, and I like bold people. That's why I like Nick Jones. When he came here, that guy spoke with a lot of boldness. When I was looking at your episodes, that's what resonated. This guy's speaking with his heart on his sleeve. I like him.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:54] And we felt like that was Elder Holland. And then he comes out with this talk. Anyways, I wasn't part of this, but, yeah.

First Cracks in Faith and Gay Friends

Ben Jalaff [01:06:01] So I come to Justine, and Justine, still, I feel bad because I'm catching her off guard, but I'm telling Justine, like, this is not right now. I was trying to increase a level of anger now where I'm like, this guy shouldn't have said that he's an apostle. And Justine recommends me to talk to my friend who at the time is a bishop, and I'm like, okay, yeah, maybe I can call him, because he can calm me down a little bit, because I was very upset, actually.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:23] I did not recommend you. You kept saying I should talk to the bishop.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:26] Oh, is that what. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:27] And I kept saying, why do you have to talk to him just because he's a bishop?

Ben Jalaff [01:06:30] I just gave him a lot of respect, you know, and I thought that he could help me feel better. And then I asked him to come over to talk about it. And story short, that's the first time I heard that. Oh, yeah. I believe that being gay is a choice. When he told me that.

John Dehlin [01:06:45] A bishop tells you this?

Ben Jalaff [01:06:46] Yeah. When he told me that, I just. Wait a second. How do you know, it's a choice. And he couldn't answer that. Like, are you kidding me? Wait a second. No. My level of respect dropped drastically. Shattered. Because now I'm walking home feeling like that didn't help. And now I have an apostles talk in my brain. Waking up something that has been dormant for a very long time. That if I ever see Jeffrey R. Holland face to face, I will say, hey, thank you. Because you woke me back. You woke that other person that took a nap for a while and woke up and realized, Ben is back. I'm ready to take the car for a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] Thanks, Jeff. Ben is back.

Justine Jalaff [01:07:32] And then that's when I started seeing angry more.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:35] Yeah. So my friends from Welland are still active at this point. I have a friend of mine, Donathan Burden, goes to the same church with me in London and his wife Justine. And they will make this comment. You notice that every time you see Ben at church, he's always upset and angry. Like he's always here. Look. And they will make fun of that, thinking that it was just me, just tired or whatever. No, it was just me starting to hear things differently.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:59] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:59] And I was starting to feel it in my soul, what am I doing here? Like, and now it's conflicting because now I'm starting to feel like even people call me Brother Halaf. I'm like, it's Ben, not Brother Halaf. Because now I'm having this conflicting person conflicting with my Mormon me. And they're going ahead. And then out of nowhere, the first casualty of my group of friends from Welland leave the church. My friend Jonathan Medwin. Now when he leaves, that's a person that I could look at and realize, you know more than me because you're a studious guy in the gospel.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] He was super faithful.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:44] Oh, absolutely. Me and my friend Mario, the people that we saw last night, we're talking about him like, yeah, when he left, he acknowledged cracked me up because we know how he is with the gospel.

Justine Jalaff [01:08:53] Yeah. He's the one you served with on your mission.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:55] Yeah. And for me, that I became afraid because now I knew, okay, this is hitting now at home. And then after that, my friend Andrew leaves.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] Wait, did you ask, did you call him?

Ben Jalaff [01:09:09] Not yet. Oh, I called him when he left the church.

John Dehlin [01:09:12] Whenever he left the church.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:13] Yeah, I called him and said, hey, look, Jonathan, I know you left the church, but please don't stop being my friend.

John Dehlin [01:09:19] But did you say why did you leave?

Ben Jalaff [01:09:20] No.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:21] Why not Fear and not knowing that there was a why.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:27] No, I didn't Ask him why.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] Mormons never ask why when your friends or family, even if your brother, sibling, spouse, parents. Mormons never ask why when somebody leaves the church.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:39] Oh, we never asked why.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:40] I was terrified when I found out because I knew this guy's not an idiot. He knows the stuff you didn't want to know.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:46] The idiot. We didn't want to know because you

Ben Jalaff [01:09:48] always know stories of people leaving the church. But then when it hits at home like that, now you know, like, there's something wrong here. Then one by one, another friend from Welland walks away. Andrew, who's also a spiritual giant at the time, walks away, and another walks away and another walks away. And now I'm seeing.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:05] It just kept going.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:06] It kept going through a whole year. People kept leaving, including my.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:10] Not just a year. It was like over a space of. Of years.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:13] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:13] It's just like, oh, no, not him. Oh, no, not him. Oh, no, not him.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:18] It just became heavy to the point where, like, this is my whole entire Wellen group gone.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:23] Which was your.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:24] My. It was my what got me there Foundation.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:28] What got you there in the first place.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:30] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:31] So to me, I'm looking at, like, wait a second. What are you guys doing? I stay because of you.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:34] Right. Set my whole life up, I made

Ben Jalaff [01:10:39] decisions based on this because I saw you guys. Then when that happens, I have to

John Dehlin [01:10:44] ask, were they causing each other to leave? In other words, is it like a domino thing where one falls and it knocks over the next and knocks over

Justine Jalaff [01:10:51] the next, you're saying no, they had their individual experience. They failed to cause them to leave.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] Really?

Justine Jalaff [01:10:57] Yeah. None of them were corresponding with each other about it.

John Dehlin [01:11:01] Wow.

Ben Jalaff [01:11:02] I think that that's powerful. It just individually kept happening. When my friend Jonathan and Justine left, those were the last two people, and they were in London, living in London. When they left. I like, whoa, okay. I lost all my friends that I truly love within that spectrum of Mormonism, because it goes back to the beautiful experience of Mormonism. They're all done. And now I'm left with what is not that great. And now I'm supposed to defend it. And what had happened was it came to a point in 2022. I'm going to get emotional here. Please bear with me, because this is. This is it right here.

John Dehlin [01:11:47] Emotions are appropriate.

Ben Jalaff [01:11:50] My cousin Claudia calls me and invites me to her wedding. Hey, Gordo, I want you to come to. You're my favorite cousin in Colombia. And I said, no, Claudia, I can come. I'm completely disconnected at this point. With my family, extended and parents. I said no. My parents call me, hey, Gordo, I'll pay for your ticket. I pay for everything. Come to the wedding. I said no.

Ben Jalaff [01:12:15] And I'm expecting Justine to side with me with the decision of me saying no. And I go back home ready to tell her how my parents are so irrational that I have to leave my business for a week to go to a wedding of a cousin I haven't seen in a while. And then I go home and I tell Justine, yeah, my parents want me to go to Colombia for Claudia's wedding. And Justine is like, you should go. You haven't seen your family in a while. You should go. I was caught off guard. Like, really? Yeah, go. I think you need it.

Ben Jalaff [01:12:43] So I said to myself, well, to protect myself from my family, I'll bring two friends. And the friends I pick were two ex Mormons, my friend Jonathan Medmun, and another person I can name because he told me not to.

John Dehlin [01:12:58] So these are Canadian.

Ben Jalaff [01:12:59] Canadian Mormons. Canadian Mormons from West, who left the church. Who left the church.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] And you wanted two ex Mormon friends to come with you. Why?

Ben Jalaff [01:13:07] Because when my friend Jonathan Medwin left the church and my other friend left, my friendship with them changed and became better, even when I was active.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] What?

Justine Jalaff [01:13:18] I need to point out something about Ben that's so incredibly amazing about him. Friendship to him is very important, and he is a very good friend. And when he lost these people from they. They chose to walk away. His first response was to call them and tell them, hey, I love you. Don't think I don't want to. Like, let's still be friends. Of course, he didn't ask why, but still was. But that was enough for them that, no, he still wants to be our friend.

Ben Jalaff [01:13:53] The relationship, yeah, I didn't want to lose it because I was holding them there. They're my family. The Welland guys are brothers to me till this day. They are like a brotherhood to me. And now they're gone. And I don't want to lose the brotherhood, no matter what. So I asked these two ex Mormon kids to come with me, Donovan and my other friend who drink and who drink and do all these things. So I asked them to come. They said yes right away.

Ben Jalaff [01:14:18] And we go to Colombia. Remember what Jeffrey R. Holland had done? I woken up the other Ben. The other Ben is still there. When I go to Colombia, guess who's back home? Ben Benjamin from Venezuela. He's back home.

Ben Jalaff [01:14:34] Mormon Ben, who was created in Canada, is no longer in power. As soon as I step foot in Colombia. I felt at home, my vulnerability that I saw in Wellen when I like the big Mormon family dream and all that. And all of a sudden, hey, I have a family too, my blood.

Ben Jalaff [01:14:56] They're here and they're happy to see me. And what came to a head was, we went to the Walled City, which is downtown Cartagena, big dancing party, and I see my mom and dad having fun with my two ex Mormon friends, having a drink and having fun. And I'm sitting at a table with a cup of water and realizing, why is the church teaching me that they're committing sin?

Ben Jalaff [01:15:26] And my Mormon me comes out and says, because they are Ben. And my other person said, fuck you. Ben said that you are done.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:38] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:15:39] And that's when I looked at my parents for the first time as my own. Because I saw that with my two close friends and realized, they're mine people. They are mine. And all the years of suppressing my own culture. Mi cultura yon my love for my tricolor.

Ben Jalaff [01:16:11] And I saw. I felt that I was back. I'm sorry. I went back to that hotel that day, and my two friends are at the balcony, and I walk for the first time. And I asked straight up to Jonathan, why do you leave the church?

Ben Jalaff [01:16:32] And he tells me later, when you ask, it wasn't you. It was someone else we'd never seen before. Why do you leave the church? And I want to say this with all the resounding power I have within me for the things that Brad Wilcox says, Russell M L Ballard, and all the apostles that claim that there's anti Mormon people out there ready to blabber this to people.

Ben Jalaff [01:16:58] My friend said nothing to me. He said, ben, you don't need to know this. You have a happy marriage with a beautiful family. You know what we want from you? Validation. That's all we want. He didn't say a single thing. Now, what? Brad Wilcox says that, oh, it's popular on TikTok and it's fun to do. Oh, because of YouTube and all that. No, he didn't say anything, which says a lot because now I go to bed thinking he knows something that he's not even willing to tell me. Because of her, because of my family.

Justine Jalaff [01:17:40] He didn't want to destroy a family.

Ben Jalaff [01:17:42] He did not want to destroy that. But he knew this dude is ready to hear it. And he told my friend, don't say anything. Two months later, we're going to a concert. And I voiced this question differently to them. I'm going to ask you a question very Differently. And I want you to be honest with me. I'm happily married with Justine. Okay? But you guys know Justine is cheating on me and is lying.

John Dehlin [01:18:14] It's a hypothetical.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:15] Hypothetical. Hypothetical. Sorry,

Justine Jalaff [01:18:19] this is an analogy.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:21] Yeah. So I asked my friend Jonathan this, and he says this to me, and I said, is that the church. Is the church cheating on me? And he said. He laughed. And he said, yep. Yeah, it is. And then I asked again, so what is it that I should look? And I said, nope. I learned a long time ago that the term anti Mormon is what I'm about to tell you. So guess what? You begin your own thing. And then I'll talk to you when you're on the saddle. He didn't say anything, but he didn't

Justine Jalaff [01:18:56] want to be the cause of a consequence.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:58] Yeah, he didn't want me to know, but he did say this. When you go back home from the concert, there's a book on my shelf, if you're curious. I'm leaving it up to you to pick it up and read it. And that book was Rough Storm Rolling. Now Go Home from the concert.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:14] And he wanted to emphasize to you this is actually an active member who wrote this book.

Ben Jalaff [01:19:18] No, he didn't say that at first. What he told me was, when you pick up the book, make sure you Google the author and make sure you know who he is. Okay. And then I did that. We came home from the concert at 2 o' clock in the morning, and I didn't go to bed till 6. I felt like I had whooped the door open and found Justine with someone else, feeling that she was cheating on me.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:40] Betrayal.

Ben Jalaff [01:19:40] But betrayal. I felt like, whoa, the Rock in the Hat.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:49] That was the first thing you read?

Ben Jalaff [01:19:51] That crazy guy from Lethbridge and the Rock in the Hat? Yeah, among other things. I read. I went downstairs because I hear my friend downstairs taking the dogs out. And then Jonathan asked me, hey, you read the book? I did. What do you think? I'm fucked. And he looked at me, he's like, I'm sorry, man. Like, what do I do about her? What do I do about Justine now? And he looks at me, he's like, justine loves you. Whatever decision you make, okay, just make sure you know what you're doing. Because he. He. He said when I left, I left completely unhinged of anger. And I'm about to drive home to see Justine.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:42] And it was a Sunday, and we went to church.

Ben Jalaff [01:20:44] It was a Sunday. We're going to church.

Discovering Troubling Church History

John Dehlin [01:20:45] Yeah, but can I ask a quick question about that? So I like I would. So Rough Stone Rolling for those who don't know is written by a Mormon patriarch, which is a very high level former stake president, former patriarch, very faithful Mormon historian who was a professor at Columbia University, went to Harvard, Brilliant guy, but very faithful. I read Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History as my first major Joseph Smith biography. And that was also written by a Mormon, but it's viewed as an anti Mormon book even though it's very accurate. So when I read Rough Stone Rolling I viewed it as like an apologetic book, like a book that was trying to be faithful, that was trying to keep people in the church.

John Dehlin [01:21:37] So it's really weird for me to hear that someone would read Rough Stone Rolling and it would cause them to question the church or lose their testimony since it was written by a faithful Mormon trying to keep people in the church. So what in the world was so disturbing about Rough Stone Rolling when it was written by a faithful Mormon to keep you in the church?

Ben Jalaff [01:21:58] My dad taught me when I was younger that a lying is a thief. A liar is a liar is a thief. In Venezuelan culture, spanking is a thing you get spanked. And one of the the sins that will lead my parents to spank me was lying. So I knew that liars are thieves. For me, the very first thing I read was the stone in the hat. When I read that and takes me back to my mission and realize the feelings that we all as missionaries had towards that guy.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] And those who haven't seen the first episode, you told the story of a guy that made fun of you as a Mormon missionary because Joseph Smith, according to him, translated the Book of Mormon with the stone in the hat. You would not believed him. Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:50] And then consequently the missionaries in turn made fun of that guy.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:53] Yeah, we make fun of him. And that's.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:55] They thought he was just making up stuff.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:57] So for me that's a strike one. And for me that was enough because now I know. What else are you not telling me then? Because that's to me that you breached me now. What else have you? And then I kept going. Then the polygamy thing comes up. Nick?

John Dehlin [01:23:15] Yeah. Your friend again. In the last episode, your friend brings up polygamy to you.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:19] So I'm going back. Not only that, the multiple versions of the first vision, my mission. Which version did I taught then?

John Dehlin [01:23:28] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:28] Of the many that are here, Joseph Smith was actually educated. Not a. An educated person.

John Dehlin [01:23:37] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:38] Emma didn't know what he was doing. But we see movies where their love is like the Biggest example of love. But he was lying about his lying, among other things. I just kept reading. And to me, all my friends said this. They always said this to me. If we tell Ben these things he's done, my friends knew that I already will be prying. If this information comes out, I'll be done. Not only that, though, but then I later find out that day that there's a thing called Gospel topic essays that Sunday. You see what I mean?

John Dehlin [01:24:15] I've been around for like five years by that point.

Ben Jalaff [01:24:17] You see what I mean? Like, to me, for a guy that has been running so hard to achieve the Mormon success, and now I'm finding out that everything I'd done, you lied about it or withhold or withheld from me, who's been struggling to. To survive this bubble.

Ben Jalaff [01:24:38] And I'm not safe from myself now because now Mormon Ben is declining very fast and the other one is coming out, and the other one that comes out is very pissed off of all the things he lost. And now what about her?

Ben Jalaff [01:24:56] Because I love Justine so much that this crisis began, but I shut up about it and suffer on my own. I study on my own. I read the Book of Mormon for the first time in a long time by myself, on my work truck.

Ben Jalaff [01:25:15] And as I'm reading the book, I hear the beautiful thing in the sarcastic, by the way, beautiful thing that says the lemonades are amun. The main ancestors of the Native Americans. Now, what is said on my. I remember went back to the house and look at my Book of Mormon from the mission. They're the main unseen principal ancestors.

Justine Jalaff [01:25:41] Oh, like what?

John Dehlin [01:25:42] Not among. In other words, when the church, Mormon Church always taught that Latin Americans and Pacific Islanders were Lamanites or descendants of Laman and Lemuel from the Book of Mormon, dark skinned because of their wickedness. Once DNA evidence came out in the early 2000s, and the church knew that it was in trouble because what it had been teaching, what the Book of Mormon taught and what the members had been teaching and prophets had been teaching for almost 200 years about, you know, Native Americans being descendants of the Lamanites who were Israelis, according to the Book of Mormon. Once the Church knew that that was no longer true, it threw the word among in the introduction to the Book of Mormon to cloud the issue so that people would not necessarily, going forward, expect Lamanites to have Israelite DNA, because DNA was showing the Native Americans came from Asia, not the Middle East.

John Dehlin [01:26:40] So DNA was disproving the Book of Mormon. And so the church kind of slid among into the title so that they can principle. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:26:49] So they took that word out.

John Dehlin [01:26:50] Yeah, yeah. So to me, without really telling the membership what they were doing, right?

Ben Jalaff [01:26:54] No, no. And the biggest difference for me as what? I will look at a member of the church that was born in the church, I will look at that and try to mental gymnast that in their heads. Like, no, there must be something wrong. No, I didn't grow up in it. Because now, again, like, I know that you have lied. Now. There's no mental gymnastics for me. For me, it's just like, no, no, no. You lie. It's over. I serve a mission. I serve a mission. I didn't teach this. I didn't teach it.

John Dehlin [01:27:24] The church made you a liar, which is worse.

Ben Jalaff [01:27:26] I went and lie. It took my two years of my life that my parents taught me on to preach a lie. How do you quantify that and be okay with that and sit in mental gymnastic? Exactly. What? Because. Let's do this. I read the apologetics. That still doesn't fix the fact. If I told somebody I'm teaching that the church is to be racist, that might have been a shellbreaker already on a lesson, but I didn't do that. If I went and told an investigator and then Joseph Smith put a rock in hand and translator, that might have been a shellbreaker. Then instead you're committing people to pay tithing and to be in this church with no information that is accurate, who does that fall into?

Processing Anger and Deception by the Church

Ben Jalaff [01:28:13] Me. I did that. I feel like an asshole. And I cannot withhold my anger because I wasn't born in this church. And I will say it right now, I had my freedom twice, and I gave it away twice to be a Mormon because I perceived that it was the best world that was given to me. But if you're asking me to do so much and you couldn't be forward with me, couldn't be honest, why do I have to give you a pass?

Ben Jalaff [01:28:48] But I have to because of her. Because that now to me is just, how do I compute her? Because I love her and my three kids. That's why Jonathan didn't say anything because of them. Now this is. What do I do? I know that I said I don't want to mention this, but I will because it's part and it's real. I was hyperventilating to my friends. I couldn't talk. So I smoke weed so I can calm down.

Ben Jalaff [01:29:24] And I know my parents are going to be like, upset about this, but I have to. I couldn't control my emotions Because I was hyperventilating. Guess what? Three months later, it didn't help. It wasn't fixing.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:40] You were hyperventilating because you thought I might leave you.

Ben Jalaff [01:29:43] Yeah, that real aspect. And I'm not listening to Mormon stories yet, but I'm listening to videos of people that have been divorced because they were in a fake crisis.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:54] Because once again, there's that insecurity coming out in our marriage. If him thinking he's not going to be good enough and he's going to lose me.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:02] It was the worst year of my life. And I came from Venezuela to Canada and I had nothing. And I sat in front of a judge that told me, you can stay, you can go, you can stay, you can go. Feeling like I was going to get deported. But 2023 was the hardest year of my life because of what I found out just two years ago. Dude. And I read the book Saints A Standard of Truth. And I felt like a little kid reading that book.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] Why?

Ben Jalaff [01:30:30] Because it was written for a child. That's not our book, our heritage that I read before my mission. It's talking to me, like, please, can somebody in the church tell me I have a stupid face? Because if you tell me, Ben, you just have a stupid face. Oh, I get it. That's why you lied to me. I get you.

John Dehlin [01:30:47] That's why he wrote Saints.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:48] That's why. Oh, I get it. You guys think I'm an idiot.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:51] I just broke this.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:52] You are so slow in here. Oh, I get it, Justine. I'm slow in there. That's why they wrote the book for me. But I just. Sorry. Authors of Saints I just read because when I decided to step away, I decided I'm going to do this according to what the church is teaching me. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon and see what happens. Read it. Nothing happened. Never really did. I read the book Saints that confirmed everything I had read on the gospel topic. Essays. The more and more I did the correct thing. I started listening to conference talks, and he got, oh, there's a fear mongering. Oh, that's how you get me to be scared. All of that stuff, one after another. And then that summer, I told myself, I'm not losing my family over this. I'm just going to shut up about it and keep my marriage intact and pretend I'm okay.

John Dehlin [01:31:44] Meaning you're hiding from your wife.

Ben Jalaff [01:31:46] Oh, yeah. She doesn't know anything.

John Dehlin [01:31:47] And I don't want to say that's lying, but a believing spouse can feel like they've Been deceived or lied to when they learn that their questioning spouse hid things from them. So again, it's the church putting you in the position of appearing like a liar.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:03] Yeah, except that person can't win because then when they try to tell their spouse, sometimes their spouse doesn't want to

John Dehlin [01:32:09] hear it and might leave them.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:11] And might leave them and take the kids. Yes. I think that there's no winning.

Ben Jalaff [01:32:14] When I decided to be. Be quiet about it during that summer, I had my friend Justine Burden told me that, hey, there's a podcast, Ben, that could help you calm down. Because she knew I was struggling, and she told me, you should listen to Mormon stories. These are stories of people that are going through the same thing as you, and it can help you out because you seeing like you have no direction. So I'm finding things from a left and right. And then I started listening to Mormon stories and the LDS discussions with Mike, and it was like you had mentioned

John Dehlin [01:32:48] what you thought about me and Mormon stories when you first watched it.

Ben Jalaff [01:32:51] In 2022, when I started to struggle after Colombia, I came across your podcast, and then I watched you for five minutes, and my Mormon brain was still trying to protect me.

Justine Jalaff [01:33:00] And he said, what?

John Dehlin [01:33:01] What?

Justine Jalaff [01:33:02] And said, oh, yeah, it was a douchebag. John's a douchebag.

Ben Jalaff [01:33:06] Oh, this guy's a douchebag. Yeah. I just thought that it was too fast for me to listen to that yet. But when Justine said that Mormon stories, it glued me in. Oh, yeah. I tried to give this guy an opportunity. Maybe I'll do it again. And that's when I glue in, like, LDS discussions is like somebody grabbing my Mormon life and throw it on the ground like a puzzle. And all of a sudden, you came with Mike and you start putting it together in front of me. And when that is happening right in front of my eyes, The more and more I realize, what am I going to do with Justine? How long do I hide this?

Ben's Doubts and Sharing Them with Justine

Justine Jalaff [01:33:51] And there's so much. How do I even begin to share it with her?

Ben Jalaff [01:33:55] So I will go to bed and I will grunt with. Because I'm trying to get Justine to ask me, are you okay? I'm like, Ms. Justine, are you okay, Ben? Hey, can I ask you a question? If there's a big battle in Hill Cumorah, how come there's no bones? I'm just trying to get a reaction to just, how come there's no evidence, no bones, no salt, no nothing.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:16] I was a very good apologetic, by the way. I was like, because there's two Hills.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:20] I didn't know about that.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:21] And we don't know where the other one is.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:23] There's two hill cumorahs. And like, wait, what? So I was confused. She didn't answer the question.

John Dehlin [01:34:29] There's one in Latin America, and then

Justine Jalaff [01:34:30] there's the one in New York, in Palmyra, where we went and saw the pageant. But that's too small for all those battles. So obviously there's another hill that we

John Dehlin [01:34:38] don't even know that somehow the plates were magically true.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:42] And. Come on. If God can take the plates away, then. And we have to experience everything by faith, then maybe he'll take all that evidence away too, because we have to walk by faith.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:52] Yeah, I remember. And then other nights, I will try to instigate a conversation. I asked Justine, like, hey, you know, I'm a little confused because why does Laban have to get his head chopped off out of nowhere? Violence, right in the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Why can't you just stab him? No. Chop his head off, like, flat out in there. Things like that are starting to hit me hard. I'm like, I'm not getting it. I'm not compelling computing. This. Something is off. And I'm trying to get Justine to talk to me about it. Nothing. Justine would not give me a single thing until General Conference of that year.

Ben Jalaff [01:35:31] Because it was during the Blue Jays were making a huge playoff push. And I told Justine, hey, look, I'm not gonna watch an old conference today. I'm gonna watch the Blue Jays and I'll watch conference after the game. And I can see. I go outside. Cause I'm watching my children play outside. And I'm watching the baseball game on my phone. And Justine is inside the house watching your conference. And Justine is watching a talk. And I don't know where she gets off and turns the TV off and goes to the kitchen. And I'm in the middle of conference. In the middle of conference.

John Dehlin [01:36:02] She turns off conference.

Ben Jalaff [01:36:03] She turns it off. And I'm like, ooh, what just happened? My through me. My through person's like, this is it time to talk? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, not yet. She turns it off. I'm not asking. And then that night, I felt what you will quantify as the spirit. I felt something in my bosom. Hey, Ben, you should watch an all conference. It's really good. And I felt like, great. My questions will be answered.

Justine Jalaff [01:36:33] Yeah. He thought this was his last. After doing all that, he was so desperate to keep his marriage and stay that Mormon Ben that I chose to marry in the temple, that he was just trying to pull at anything he could. And so he thought that that was a spiritual prompting, telling him, I need to listen to General Conference and this will help me get over all this stuff.

Ben Jalaff [01:36:59] This is it. Like when I, when I felt that I'm like, good, this is going to fix everything and I can move on. Before I watch General Conference, I wrote a message to all my friends that know about my faith crisis. And I told them, hey, I know the church has a lot of holes, but I love it and I'm going to stay. I practically told them. And all my friends said, ben, don't worry about it, we love you. Make your best decision. Very supportive.

Justine Jalaff [01:37:20] You said, I'm going to stay for

Ben Jalaff [01:37:21] my family, I'm going to stay for my family. And they all supported me, all the people that had left. And then I went to work to watch an all conference and I have a writing more when I just stand up and write and I put my headphones on and I started listening.

Ben Jalaff [01:37:37] And one after another, Elder Godoy's talk about me being the weak link of the chain because I'm doubting and questioning. So now he's attacking me and my faith crisis. And then I have Elder Anderson gives a talk about my country where he's explaining this faith promoting story of a family in Venezuela that, oh, back in the day in Venezuela used to experience a lot of electricity problems. And when the lights go off, people will go out and ransack the bakeries. And there's a faithful member that had a bakery and he was afraid for the bakery, oh, it's going to get ransacked.

Ben Jalaff [01:38:18] And then all of a sudden he goes to his business and finds out that the bakery was not ransacked, that it was intact, but everything else was destroyed.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:27] Everyone else's businesses and everybody else's business

Ben Jalaff [01:38:29] is destroyed, but his and his kid tells him, oh, that is because you pay tithing. And here I am thinking, hold on, stop. So God favored you because you pay him. What about the people around you that don't know about tithing? But then yet God got so mad because they didn't pay him that he destroyed everything else by your bakery.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:51] Or let it happen.

Ben Jalaff [01:38:52] Or let it happen. How's that fake promoting? That sounds awful. That sounds terrible.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:59] That was the talk. I think I got up and turned off.

Ben Jalaff [01:39:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:02] Oh, you didn't like it?

Justine Jalaff [01:39:03] No, because in that same general conference, I can't quite remember, but that talk about tithing was shared and then literally Two talks later, someone gets up and says, we can't treat tithing like fire insurance. Tithing is a faith promoting thing.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:19] But I'm like.

Justine Jalaff [01:39:20] But Elder Anderson just treated it like fire insurance. Why are you contradicting each other? Fleece full out in the same conference.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] So were you while. Even though you were.

Justine Jalaff [01:39:33] I was still active?

John Dehlin [01:39:34] Yeah. No. Even though you were sort of, like, being apologetic whenever Ben was bringing doubts or questions to you, were you having your own doubts in parallel?

Justine Jalaff [01:39:46] Yeah, I mean, we'll get to that. But I was starting to be. Okay. Questioning the leaders at that point and acknowledging they weren't perfect.

John Dehlin [01:39:57] Okay. Okay. All right.

Ben Jalaff [01:39:59] To put a cherry on the top of the ice cream. Then the Think Celestial talk comes.

John Dehlin [01:40:04] Okay. Never. Mormons are going to not know what that is.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:07] Yeah. The Think Celestial talk is a talk by the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ, a lot of the Saints, and he essentially talks about how you need to have a. A view of eternity and. And not lose sight of that. But then what bothered me from that talk is that he's counseling the members and tell them, do not counsel with those who do not believe he's.

John Dehlin [01:40:30] Don't ask advice. If your family and friends aren't Mormon, you should never ask them advice.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:34] Don't talk to your own kids. Don't talk to your own friends.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:37] For me, don't talk to your own parents.

John Dehlin [01:40:39] Maybe they're not faithful Mormons.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:41] He told me that I couldn't talk to Justine, and he told me, no.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:47] He told. He was telling me that I couldn't talk to Justine.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:50] Listen to me.

John Dehlin [01:40:50] That's right.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:52] And then that talk also said, don't talk to my own parents.

John Dehlin [01:40:56] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:57] He's pinning me against my people and my family. And to me, that was it.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:04] Because Ben is back. Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:41:07] It was one of those things where, like, I'm done now. I don't know what to do. And I literally just felt like, okay, it's a matter of time. What I do here is I need to find a perfect way to tell Justine what I'm gonna do. And Justine has said something to me later that week that set me off to say something to her. She said, where's my happy Ben? When she said that, I knew. She knows something's up. I need to talk to her.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:38] Did you know something was up?

Justine Jalaff [01:41:39] Oh, yeah. Not to that extent, though.

John Dehlin [01:41:42] So. Now, that was beautiful, by the way, Ben. Thank you for sharing all of that. So now where do you want to. Do you want to take us back in your story or do you just want to pick up.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:52] I want to take.

John Dehlin [01:41:52] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:53] I want to go back.

John Dehlin [01:41:53] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:56] So I think I want to go back to the first time someone in my life left the church. And that was when I was, when Ben and I were living in Alberta before we moved back to Ontario. We hung out with a good friend of mine that I made in ysa, and her and her husband were really good couple friends with us. And she was one of those friends that I felt in Alberta that I really clicked with and that maybe she's the friend that I've always been looking for in Mormonism, because I struggled beyond my never Mormon friend Shannon to find that same type of friendship within Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [01:42:36] And so I found, like, I found that with her in ysa, that friendship was only for six months because then I went on my mission. And while I was on my mission, she married her husband. And while I was on my mission, she sent me a letter telling me how, how much she struggled with the endowment.

Justine Jalaff [01:42:58] Like she really, really struggled with it. And she hadn't served a mission, so she did her endowment like the day before her wedding or something like that. And she came out of the endowment wondering if she should even continue getting married.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:13] And I'm not going to go too much into that because that's her story. And I don't know all the details, but, but she ended up staying in the church. She ended up getting married in the temple to her husband.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:28] And then I came home from my mission, married Ben. Ben and I moved back out to Alberta and we started hanging out with them while they were still active. But while we were hanging out with them, they were questioning the church.

Justine Jalaff [01:43:40] And while we were hanging out with them, she so bravely, because she valued my friendship, she, she waited. She, we specifically organized a night to hang out with each other, just me and her. And she sat me down and she told me she was leaving the church.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:02] And she told me it was because of a bunch of things. And her husband had learned about something at school and about the, about the Book of Abraham and her stuff with the, with the endowment. And that's all I really remember. I'm sure she told me more things, things, but that was the first time I ever experienced someone leaving the church, ever.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:24] And I was able, of course, I was very like, testimony. Like, I, I, I, I regret this, but I did bear my testimony to her. But at the same time, I told her, but you're my friend and our friendship's never going to change. And then I ended up moving back to Ontario and ended up continuing to invest in that friendship long distance.

John Dehlin [01:44:52] Was this before you were married?

Justine Jalaff [01:44:54] This was while I was married.

John Dehlin [01:44:55] Okay, okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:56] Yeah. Like, we were couple friends while we were married.

John Dehlin [01:44:59] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:59] Like, bang. Really got along with her husband.

John Dehlin [01:45:02] And then how many years into your marriage would this have been?

Justine Jalaff [01:45:04] That was like one year into our

John Dehlin [01:45:06] marriage, so really early in your marriage.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:07] Yeah, we both had our babies around the same time.

John Dehlin [01:45:09] Okay. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:11] And so you kind of would have noted that, but then maybe put it on a shelf, as we say in Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:18] Yeah. Like, because for me, like, I connected with her so well in Mormonism because I saw myself in her. She was strong like me, committed like me, had a testimony like me, but she was also fun loving and enjoyable and had an amazing personality. And so I just connected so well with her. And so. And like, her husband was a returned missionary and he was always so cheerful in the church and gung ho. And he actually came to my endowment before I went to my mission. And then I never saw it coming. And then all of a sudden they were leaving the church, and that really threw me for a loop at the time. But of course, I never asked her. She did try to explain to me why. But her leaving the church wasn't because of the truth claims. It was because of her initial experience with the endowment and what happened after that.

John Dehlin [01:46:07] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:08] So anyways. But I give myself props because I continued to be her friend and I found out after I left the church when I talked to her, that I was the only person who did that for them. Which shocks me.

John Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah. Oh.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:22] I mean, doesn't shock me at the same time.

John Dehlin [01:46:24] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:25] Even though I thought I handled it poorly because I, like, bore my testimony. But it was because I. And, like, I would. I would met. We would video chat with each other when I was still in Ontario, even despite her leaving the church, like, because it was like a genuine friendship anyways, so that was like, kind of like, I think maybe my first tiny little crack.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:49] And then being married to Ben, this is really hard to speak to because. No one's flat out came out and said it, but sometimes I wonder if people think I left the church because of Ben and that it's his fault that I left the church.

Justine Jalaff [01:47:15] And I think that people have thought that, which I take offense to, because that. What, do I not have a brain? But. But I know that being married to Ben opened me up for critical thinking, because Ben looked at things different and he. He questioned things and he looked at things differently and he would get upset about things that I wouldn't necessarily get upset about.

Justine Jalaff [01:47:45] And so it. Because of that, I. I don't look at it as a bad thing. I look at it as he was introducing critical thinking into my life.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:56] So,

Justine Jalaff [01:47:58] yeah. So anyways, I'm seeing all these people that were so influential in Ben's life leaving the church. I'm seeing my good friend who's married to his good friend Justine Burton, leave the church. And you still don't question it. But at the same time, during COVID for some reason, I think a lot of people experienced this. Covid was that time to maybe reflect and maybe if you had a hard time with some things before, it was that time to truly maybe analyze or critique. Probably because you were taking a break from the institution.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:41] Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:48:42] You weren't going every Sunday. And that was the first time that I ever actually allowed myself to read more Diverse Voices online. And so I came across Julie Hanks, and for the first time in my life, I heard the words purity culture is rape culture. And I was like, say what? What do you mean by that? Purity culture? First of all, I don't think I had ever even heard that term. And wait a second. You're an active Mormon therapist and you're saying purity culture is rape culture, but then you're also saying motherhood is a relationship, not a role. Like, she's just saying all these things. I was like, crack. Crack. Like, what is. And you're active. I. I was entering the world of nuanced, progressive Mormonism that I never knew existed before.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] Yeah. Did you watch Julie Hanks's stuff?

Justine Jalaff [01:49:37] No. It was just, like, random posts that I would read. I never watched her stuff.

John Dehlin [01:49:42] And did you. Did you that. That comment about rape culture, Was that the word used?

Margi Dehlin [01:49:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:49] Like, did you learn about that and process it to understand?

Justine Jalaff [01:49:52] What I started doing was reading the comments.

John Dehlin [01:49:55] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:49:56] And I would read the comments of these posts that. Declaring these things that I'd never heard before. And it was active Mormons, like, agreeing or active Mormons getting really upset. But then I was reading ex Mormon comments, and it was, like, starting to break my brain down because I'm like, hang on. Why are Mormons so angry? Why are people arguing? Why is no one on the same page about this? I don't understand. Why are we not on the same page? If this is the one true gospel, we should all be on the same page. Why are act of Mormons disagreeing with other act of Mormons? I don't get this.

John Dehlin [01:50:35] Did it register with you at the time that Julie Hanks was the daughter of Lex de Azevedo.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:40] I don't even know who that is.

John Dehlin [01:50:41] He was the. He was the one who wrote Saturday's Warrior.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:45] Nope.

John Dehlin [01:50:45] So Julie Hanks is the daughter of the man who wrote Saturday's Warrior, which was the musical your family was based on.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:52] You can call that irony or you can call that meant to be, but she was the first voice online that

John Dehlin [01:50:57] I read, so I'm the first person to tell you that right now. You didn't even know that?

Justine Jalaff [01:51:00] Nope. I knew she was, like, a singer, and I only found that out recently.

Ben Jalaff [01:51:04] There's so many first with Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [01:51:06] Bad.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:08] Also detached from that Utah culture. Yeah, Yeah, I just had that VHS in my basement.

John Dehlin [01:51:14] Her dad's Lexi Azevedo, and he is the main writer of Saturday's Border.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:17] Okay. Yeah, well, she definitely didn't internalize the same things I did. So anyways. But I didn't really continue following her too much. But then it, like, led me to. Because, like COVID 19, we were all on social media so much more than normal, and our lives had started. Slowed down so much. We had the time. Like, I remember my hand would fall asleep from holding my phone because I was on it so much.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:42] And I came across the Ex Mormon account, Dear Mormon Me, which is just, like, illustrations, and it's anonymous. And I started reading some of her posts, and I once again started reading the comments and seeing these contradictory views over and over and over again.

Justine Jalaff [01:52:04] Then I came across, because we have a subscription to Disney, which I think also in the States is Hulu, we came across. I went and star became a thing, like the star category with the movies, the more adult, like, stuff on Disney. And I was, like, just scrolling through the movies on there, and I came across Mormon no More, which is the documentary about these two women, Sal and

John Dehlin [01:52:31] Lena, who we've had on Mormon. Mormon Stories, who are two Mormons who married men and then after multiple kids, both realized they were lesbian, fell in love with each other, ended up getting divorced from their husbands.

Justine Jalaff [01:52:45] I watched that whole thing as an act of Mormon. And, oh, here's another thing I didn't mention. When we moved back to London, there had been a big exodus of about three families who left the London ward because of the CES letter.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:01] So this was in 2015. We came back to. We moved to London and discovered that these three families had read a book called the CES Letter and that this had caused them to leave the church. And so that was the first time I ever heard about the CES Letter. And I carried that information and that book title in my head since then. And there were a couple times where I googled CES Letter and I think it was one time during COVID I googled CES Letter because I heard them talking about it on Mormon no More. And I googled CS Letter and I saw his webpage and this is my Mormon brain protecting myself.

Justine Jalaff [01:53:46] I saw that he was charging for the book. Meanwhile, if you keep scrolling, you'll get a free PDF version. But at the top, he's charging for the book. And I was like, priestcraft.

Ben Jalaff [01:53:56] I remember when I found out about Jeremy Runnels, he had a lisp because I didn't know that he had a hearing problem, but I didn't even get to that because I heard him had a lisp. And I quantify that as I don't believe you. You sound odd.

LGBTQ Policies and Online Faith Crisis Content

Justine Jalaff [01:54:10] Oh, and another thing that came out online and I can't remember when was the ordained woman no more or was it ordained woman? So Mormon no more ordained woman with Kate Kelly. And she was on social media and I remember mocking her, her appearance. So anyways, because you're protecting yourself.

John Dehlin [01:54:33] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:34] Your brain is protecting yourself from the impending faith crisis. And so I'm googling CS Letter and I'm like, priestcraft, he's charged charging money.

John Dehlin [01:54:45] Like Mormon apostles don't charge for their books. Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:47] What do I know?

Ben Jalaff [01:54:48] I don't know, John.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:50] I didn't know any of that stuff. But that's.

John Dehlin [01:54:52] Those are the bestseller best selling books. That deseret book are Mormon prophets.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:56] So I never read the CS letter, but it was in my brain. Oh, and then I started listening to the questions from a closet podcast, which

John Dehlin [01:55:06] is Charlie Bird and Ben Shalotti, two gay Mormons who were BYU at the time. Since Ben's left to go to UVU because he had such a horrible time as a gay employee of BYU that he had to leave and go to uvu. Charlie Byrd was Cosmo the cougar mascot at byu. He since has married his husband. And somehow they're still active faithful Mormons in good standing. But both in effect have left orthodox Mormonism in some way or another. But at the time, they were still trying to be faithful, devout gay Mormon men.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:43] Yeah, they haven't left Mormonism. No, they're still in.

John Dehlin [01:55:46] Yeah, yeah, I meant devout faithful Mormonism because you can't be same sex married.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:51] Yeah, like they're nuanced and progressive.

John Dehlin [01:55:52] Yeah, that's right.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:53] Yeah. But still faithful. But that brings me back to rewind a little bit when we moved to London, Proposition 8 was happening and we were so displaced from the states. Like what was happening in California? Oh, I learned from a mission companion who was part of Proposition 8. She was from California. She told me about it and how she, as a teenager would go door to door campaigning against gay marriage. That's the first time I heard about that. And then when we moved back to London, the United States legalized gay marriage. And I had been raised and internalized the doctrine that being gay was a sin and a choice.

Justine Jalaff [01:56:41] And that was something I had to eventually deconstruct as an active member. But that's how I was raised. I was raised, it was a choice that it was a sin and that the church does not support those actions and that being gay is a threat to the. To the eternal family and a threat to the family of proclamation, which is what the church was advertising at that time.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:04] So I remember on the day that gay marriage was legalized in states because it had already been legalized in Canada before that. But everything. As Canadians, we follow American news very closely. The church came out with a. Either a statement or an article. I can't remember talking about how we need to protect and support the family.

Justine Jalaff [01:57:27] And I posted that on Facebook in support of the family. Feeling like I was being led by the spirit to do this. And I did not get exactly backlash, but I had two people respond to it. I had my sister in law respond to it and send me an article in which it was a parent of a gay son who hopes to one day see a day when the church accepts gay people. And she sent me a message. I hope you can read this and maybe see things a little differently and that I hope for a day where the church can accept this. And I was not prepared for that.

Justine Jalaff [01:58:07] And I was like. And then my friend Shannon saw me post that. And what happened to me and Shannon's friendship is that we were like this. We became instant best buds, instant, like almost sisters. But the older and older we got, and me staying Mormon and her not being Mormon, we went like this.

Justine Jalaff [01:58:30] And Shannon described it as when we were younger, her world was still small. But as she got older and she moved away from home and she went to university, her world got bigger while my world still stayed small.

Justine Jalaff [01:58:43] And so it kind of was. And Shannon was grappling with how to maintain a friendship with me. She often did categorize my friendship because, I mean, I don't blame her. I was Mormon and all of her friends are not. And how. And so my friend I felt my friendship be categorized.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:02] And at the time, that was a source of sadness for me in our friendship. But at the same time, there was nothing that could be done because I was Mormon. But she traveled all the way to London to talk to me about what I posted.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:16] And she told me in that moment that she does not believe that being gay is a sin. In fact, she knows it's not. And she knows that this is not a choice and that what I did was wrong.

Ben Jalaff [01:59:33] Really, this is heavy. Like, just things like that. The fact that she drove all the way, that's a two and a half hour drive to just tell Justine, what are you doing? Like, I mean, talking about how good of a friend she is.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:46] This was the line in the sand for her. She's like, okay, I gotta say something. I can't let this go. Cause when it gets her values.

John Dehlin [01:59:52] But that's an act of love. Weirdly, if she didn't care about you, she wouldn't have bothered.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:56] No, just. Cause she cared about me. She cared about my friendship deeply. And she didn't want to lose me as a friend. But at the same time, she's like, how can I be friends with someone like this? And she did. And this hero. And I couldn't understand it at the time, but she specifically told me, if one of my kids is gay, you're not invited to the wedding.

John Dehlin [02:00:13] Whoa. Dang.

Justine Jalaff [02:00:14] And I was like, what? Of course I would love your child.

Ben Jalaff [02:00:17] I remember Justine coming and asking me and telling me this. And I remember trying to explain it to Justine. Like, how can you think that you can go to the wedding after this? Like, I mean, you're not agreeing with the life that her child is choosing. It comes back down to what I thought. Like, if one of my kids is gay, I can stay here. That's not me supporting them. So I can totally understand Shannon's, you know, feeling that way.

Justine Jalaff [02:00:41] And when actually Ben found out about this, Ben was like, yeah, you shouldn't have posted that. I was like. But I felt like I was supporting the church. So what did I do? I sh. I deactivated my Facebook because I could not handle it. I could not handle the backlash. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting this just from two people.

Justine Jalaff [02:01:03] And. Yeah. And so that was the, I think, the beginning of me trying to learn for myself that. I'm so confused right now. The church is telling me one thing, but I think I might be starting to believe something else, which is, I don't think gay is a choice. So then When I started listening to questions from a closet.

Justine Jalaff [02:01:33] And they were active members who were gay and. And came out that they were gay. And a lot of people have a lot of criticism for this podcast, a lot of ex Mormons. But they, they, as an active member of the church, helped me understand what it is truly. What it is truly to be gay and to be gay in the church.

Justine Jalaff [02:01:55] And they made me realize, this is not a choice. You are born this way. And they helped me understand that. And then from there, I came across. So obviously social media influenced me very heavily. I came across another social media account. She was an active member at the time, and she was talking about how, once again, progressive nuance, how she doesn't believe in absolutes. So she doesn't believe in saying, I know. Like, how can we truly know?

John Dehlin [02:02:30] Do you remember who it was?

Justine Jalaff [02:02:31] I don't know her name.

John Dehlin [02:02:33] That's fine.

Justine Jalaff [02:02:34] But she was a garment wearing and talked vocally about the garments on her thing. And she was a single. A single, single adult member in you in Idaho, I think. And just the way she expressed herself resonated with me. And I was like, yeah, it's okay to say I don't know, or it's like. Or not saying like, because I was raised, I know the church is true. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. I would cry at the pulpit saying, I know Joseph Smith is a prophet.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:06] And then I was like, you know what? I'm seeing some things in the church that I'm not necessarily understanding and I'm not necessarily okay with. So maybe it's okay for me to just say, I believe or I hope this is true.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:23] And that helped me. When Ben came to me and told me that he didn't believe anymore, my first response was him, it's okay, I don't believe in absolutes anymore.

John Dehlin [02:03:37] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:03:37] But that didn't stop me from completely falling into a big mess of tears, telling him, I'm gonna lose my priesthood holder.

John Dehlin [02:03:47] Did you say it smiling? Laughing?

Justine Jalaff [02:03:49] No, I said it crying, like, and

John Dehlin [02:03:51] sad and really afraid.

Ben Jalaff [02:03:53] What had happened was I told Justine, I finally talked to her, and she let me take that step of taking a break. I didn't exactly tell her, I'm leaving, I need a break. I think a couple days later, she saw me taking my garments off. And when she saw that, I think it glued in her that it's real. So I went to the basement to do my own thing. And I remember Justine comes downstairs and she broke down in the basement. Like, what happened? She just. The million dollar Question what happened? Like, out of a scroll of a thousand things, which one do I tell you? Because it's not a singular thing. I remember telling Justina. I don't even know what to tell you. Like, there's so many.

Justine Jalaff [02:04:32] Yeah, sorry. I forgot to say that I was also witnessing this very angry Ben. Like, why are you so angry at church? Why are you so miserable? What is happening to you?

John Dehlin [02:04:45] So this wasn't his normal person. No.

Justine Jalaff [02:04:49] We even had the bishop at the time say to. Because his wife is my friend, say, yeah. Like, he's like, why is like, I haven't seen Ben happy in a really long time, and it's just like, yeah, what happened?

Justine Jalaff [02:05:05] And then I'm allowing myself to question. And I came up with a theory before Ben approached me with his faith crisis, because I had a friend come to me, and she was struggling in the church, and I told her, you know what? This is what I think is happening. I think that the church is an institution and that it has a lot of flaws and that I actually think that Jesus Christ is going to come back and tell us, you've been doing this wrong.

Justine Jalaff [02:05:34] That was me being apologetic, but also trying to, like, validate that there are reasons people leave and there are reasons that there's issues. But I think, like, we are in the true church, and we just sort of somehow got some things wrong. And Christ is going to come and tell us, oh, this is how it's actually supposed to be.

Ben Jalaff [02:05:55] Yeah. I told Justine. And in the basement, I told her, hey, look, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to point out one thing, but I told Justine, you could do this on your own. And that's when Justine decided, okay, I'm gonna do it. I don't want you to tell me anything. I'm gonna do it my own way. The next day, she sent me a text message. I'm reading the CES letter. And my heart stops when I hear that. Because now I know. Whoa, okay, this is actually happening now. But what I found out that night is that Justine is reading the CES letter, but she had never read the book of Abraham.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:38] You didn't know that at the time, though.

Ben Jalaff [02:06:39] You didn't know that at the time. But I just. She comes home and she said that it didn't resonated with her, which I found odd.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:46] Like, what poor Ben is trying so hard to, like, he would come up to me and he would point out paragraphs. Oh, by the way, for some reason, I. I knew about the Gospel topic essays. I knew they existed, I think since they came out. I don't know how, but I didn't feel like that was a secret. So I had gone on the gospel library app on my own search, Church history in the Gospel. By the way, those of you who don't think that these exist, just go on the gospel app, go under Church history, and they're right there. And I would. I like scrolled through them and like, I think because they're written so apologetic and I was still so faith faithful, that was like, oh yeah, church history is messy. We got issues.

John Dehlin [02:07:34] But no, they're written in a way so that you won't think there's a problem.

Justine Jalaff [02:07:37] Yeah, exactly.

Ben Jalaff [02:07:39] I don't think that works either.

Justine Jalaff [02:07:40] It did not. He thought there was a big problem after reading them. And I was like, no, there's no problem.

Ben Jalaff [02:07:45] Not amount of apologetic on those words. I will find any kindness on that. Like, it doesn't matter how nicely you put it to me that Joseph Smith had 40 plus wives because God told him to. Because now you're blaming God for this. Now which one do I pick? Do I blame Joseph Smith or God then? Either or. You have a problem.

John Dehlin [02:08:04] Yeah, it's a problem.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:05] You have a problem. Okay, I'm gonna give Joseph Smith a password that means God is the problem here. And that's the God we're supposed to follow. The angel with the flaming sword from Fanny Alger. For the ones, we all know that this is Joseph Smith forcing, not Fanny Alger. This is Joseph Smith forcing a girl to marry him under a threat of

Justine Jalaff [02:08:26] death or destruction or eternal destruction.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:29] I'm like, no matter apologetic, the way you write it is going to convince me that it's not courting someone.

Justine Jalaff [02:08:36] Yeah. So Ben would come up to me and he's like, did you know that it says in the Gospel topic essays that Joseph Smith said he saw an angel with a flower, flaming sword, trying to convince this girl to marry him? And I'd be like, I grew up with the narrative that Joseph did not want to do polygamy and that God basically made him do it. So I was like, that's nothing new.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:59] I tried so hard, but Ben was

Justine Jalaff [02:09:02] like, but where is the agency here? Where is this girl's agency? And actually, where is Joseph Smith's agency? If we're a church of agency and God has given us our agency, where is their agency? And I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know. Just stop bothering me with this stuff.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:19] I'm trying really Hard to try to get. Justine, open your eyes a little bit. This is not good. So I tried one last dish at 10, and this is not good on my part. What I did here, I wish I would have told Justine. I gathered some friends that were still active and brought them into my home because I wanted to ask questions. I want to give them a chance. Can you please answer these questions for me? Because I'm giving you one last attempt. Convince me to stay.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:44] And they're not giving me very good answers. The one thing I did ask that group of friends, I said to them, because London has a lot of homeless problem. A lot of homeless people in London. I remember telling my friend, what if I take my 10% tithing and I don't give it to the church, but I give it to the London shelter? Because that's what Jesus taught us, right?

Ben Jalaff [02:10:06] So I'm explaining this to him, and he said, no, because if you do that, you lose your temple recommendation. And I'm trying to tell him I highly doubt Jesus cares. And then Justine, out of nowhere, snaps and said, well, Ben dad, you lose your temple recommend. That's it. When she snapped at me, I knew,

Justine Jalaff [02:10:25] oh, you've pushed this too far.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:27] I pushed it too far. And now I know Justine is not ready for this. And I stepped away and my friends left, and I felt like, oh, man, this is no good.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:37] Yeah. But he got really upset that I did that.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:39] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:40] And I was just like, I just. What is happening? Why are you so upset? I understand there's issues, but is it that bad that you're acting like this?

Ben Jalaff [02:10:51] Because Justine thinks it's happening very quickly, but she doesn't know. I've been doing this since the early stages of 2023. I'm being silent for so long, and I'm finally releasing. And to make things worse, this is it right here, the resolution. I have always had a friend that grew up around the Wellengeist that was very, very powerful, giving testimonies. Powerful guy. But I'm having. I'm suspecting he's gone from the church, and I decided to give him a call just because I'm suspecting. Story short, he tells me, yeah, true. Claims all that. But I came across this book by Stephen Hassam. And what is that? It talks about cult behavior and all that.

John Dehlin [02:11:34] The book is Combating Cult Mind Control by Stephen Hasson. We've had him on the podcast.

Ben Jalaff [02:11:39] Yeah. So he tells me to don't worry about reading the book because it's a lot and you're going through A lot right now. But I'm going to recommend two videos that you could watch. One is about talking about that book, but there's somebody on YouTube illustrating stages of what's going on. And there's another video of top 10 things to see if you're in a cult.

Ben Jalaff [02:12:01] And I watched both videos, and at that point, it wasn't about me worrying about my marriage. It's about me and my children. Now, wait a second. I was stepping out, but now I'm concerned about my kids now because I watched that top 10 things. And she said, if you have one step, you're not in a cult. If you're in two, no. If you're in four, maybe. And when you're in fight. We were at the eight step, and I'm like, whoa, this is bad. At that point, I told Justine, like, you need to watch this with me.

Justine Jalaff [02:12:36] Yeah. And I didn't want to. But when he told me who sent it to him, this was someone we both grew up with. We were saying, what? This person left as well. That was a big shock. And I said, because I knew this person so well, okay, I'll watch it. And I. I have a hard time. Okay. So.

Justine Jalaff [02:13:00] Because if my family or active members ever watch this, they'll take great offense for me using the C word. But this is literally what broke my brain. So Ben showed me this YouTube video of this man. He illustrates the bite model and how Steven Hazan has explained it.

The Moment Faith Finally Broke

Justine Jalaff [02:13:24] And he simply explains it. And I watched that YouTube video, and literally something in my brain just broke. And so how can I not use the C word when that is what broke my brain and broke my shelf?

Justine Jalaff [02:13:42] Listening to that and being like, oh, my God, am I in a cult? And I do want to say, and I think this is very profound, some people will disagree with me, but I have every right to say that through my experiences that I think I was in a cult.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:09] But if you're an active member of the church and you don't think you're in a cult, then maybe you're not in a cult. I think it's for me, on my experiences and how I. How I internalized the gospel and how Sorry. And how it informed my choices and led my life and the harm that I feel like it did to me. And I also think serving a mission was a big part of that, too. It broke my brain, and that is what led me to start looking at the truth claims.

John Dehlin [02:14:43] Yeah. You can. You know, you can feel like you were raised in a cult without you having to Tell other Mormons.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:50] Yes. That you're in a cult. I will never tell my family that they are in a cult.

John Dehlin [02:14:54] That was your experience.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:55] That was my experience, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:57] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:58] And I had a sibling when I left the church. I didn't even bring it up, but she's like, we're not a cult. And I have to say, like, okay, that's fine. You're not in a cult. But I was in a cult. How can I. I'm sorry. How can I not say that? That's what broke my brain. That's what caused me to finally understand what's been happening my entire life.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] And is there any way you could summarize that? I mean, the bite model is a way that people. The Stephen Hassan sort of, you know, behavioral control, information control, thought control, emotional manipulation. Do you even want to go there?

Justine Jalaff [02:15:37] I don't. I haven't even watched it since that first time. But what really broke me, I think, was the control aspect of how cults can even control what you wear. And at that point, I was feeling like the garments were controlling me, and I was. I was feeling like that my garments were taking away. Took away my autonomy to decide how I wanted to dress and how I wanted to appear. And I was having a hard time with that at that point. So for me, it's like, you're controlling what I wear.

John Dehlin [02:16:12] But that's just one people.

Justine Jalaff [02:16:14] That was just one.

John Dehlin [02:16:15] You're not listing everything.

Justine Jalaff [02:16:16] No, that was just, like, what went through my brain initially. And then another thing was I always resented the fact that I could never socially drink because it made me not have friendships, because I just couldn't sit in the nuance of hanging out with people who were drinking and still have those friendships. It was all or nothing for me because I had a lot of fear. And I always. I remember telling my friend who walked away from the church and they still haven't chosen to drink. And I remember telling her, as an Acton member, oh, I would drink. I would drink socially, for sure. But, I mean, I'm a member, so. And so I felt like that was controlling me. Coffee. Like, you're controlling what I eat, what I drink.

John Dehlin [02:17:00] Like underwear.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:03] Yeah, like. And there's so much more to it.

John Dehlin [02:17:06] But I was like, purity culture was a big thing.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:09] Yeah, the purity culture that I. I couldn't decide for myself if I wanted to be sexually active or not. I was just. No, because you told me no. And. Yeah, I don't even remember. So many things just went through my brain, and I was like, I don't know what just happened. I don't know what just happened.

John Dehlin [02:17:30] You mentioned also self confidence being so low.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:35] Yeah. Oh, I think it was

John Dehlin [02:17:39] like life was stolen from you.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:42] Yeah, I just, I'm not sure. I felt that then. I hadn't deconstructed that yet, but I think because I had, I have to say this, people who leave the church don't just wake up one day and decide to leave. Something was not working for them for a very long time. And I think I realized in that moment why I had been trying so hard to follow the Mormon formula and why it wasn't working for me because I was never supposed to do it in the first place. I was never supposed to have to be on that one path, being told everything I needed to do to get back to God in the first place. And you manipulated me to make me think that I did. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:18:39] And then you also mentioned a lack of informed consent, which speaks to the information control part.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:45] Would you feel like you were given all the information?

Justine Jalaff [02:18:48] No. Because at that point I had learned about the Rock in the hat and that was not my narrative growing up.

John Dehlin [02:18:54] Polygamy.

Justine Jalaff [02:18:55] And for some reason I had already learned. Polygamy, I'm sad to say, was not a shelf breaker for me because for some reason I had a seminary teacher who focused a lot on that when we did Doctrine and Covenants. And I, I, people in the church had told me, I've read on the ex Mormon Reddit that people are like, I never learned that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I'm like, I totally learned that Joseph Smith was a polygamist.

John Dehlin [02:19:20] But you probably didn't know. 14 year old girl, she probably didn't know. Mother, daughter pairs, sister pairs.

Justine Jalaff [02:19:25] I knew that he married, that lived with him.

John Dehlin [02:19:27] But you didn't know he lied to Emma. No, I married 22 women before you ever told Emma.

Justine Jalaff [02:19:32] I know she didn't like it.

Ben Jalaff [02:19:33] Yeah, no, I, I, I remember. I mean, when polygamy to me again, you can paint it as beautifully. As beautifully as you can is still wrong. You know, And I know that there's Mormons and ex Mormons that are okay with that. No, you can tell me that. And the one thing that the church teaches that Joseph Smith didn't want to do it. Yeah, right. You're meaning to tell me that if God appears to a man and says you're allowed to have sex with multiple women, you're going to say no? You'll be like, oh, God commanded me, why not be forward and Tell Emma right away, why are you hiding it? You know, and what he did, also getting his brother Hyrum to give the revelation to her. You couldn't even do it yourself. Like, to me, I look at it as. Like, it's wrong already. This is bad.

Justine Jalaff [02:20:24] But I grew up being told that I have a loving, merciful God, but also being told at the same time that I have a God that forces people who don't want to do polygamy to do polygamy. And that Joseph Smith would have rather have died than do polygamy. But God made him, and it's not true.

John Dehlin [02:20:43] Because when you read the letters he wrote some of his polygamous wives, it's come to me. I'm lonely and I need you beside me. He was loving it.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:52] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:20:52] Which I didn't learn until later. And then the next step for me. So after that, for me. So you're raised in the church to believe so much in the Book of Mormon, so much in the Book of Mormon, and it's connected to all your spiritual experiences, and you're emotionally connected to it, and it's the one true book on the earth. It's the most correct book on the earth. On the earth. It's the cornerstone of our religion. If it falls, everything falls. And I remember talking to my friend who had left the church, and I remember saying, well, if Joseph Smith was such a bad guy, how could he have written such a book as. As amazing as the Book of Mormon? And this just smiled. She said, maybe you should check out this podcast, LDS Discussion, which is actually

John Dehlin [02:21:43] a Mormon Stories product that we marketed with the name LDS Discussions. Just for those of you who don't know, you can go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts or there's a YouTube playlist under the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel called LDS Discussions. It's like 50, 55 episodes where we tackle Mormon Church truth claims chronologically, trying to be as evidence based and as neutral as we can be. But we obviously sometimes get upset. Anyway.

Justine Jalaff [02:22:14] Yeah, so it wasn't the CES letter that resonated with me. I didn't even finish it. I don't even think I got past page three. It's like, I don't understand these questions, but I started listening. I started listening to Elia's discussions and I listened to the first episode about treasure digging. And I like history. I'm a history minor.

Justine Jalaff [02:22:37] I enjoy history. I know how to do research and no credible sources because I did my minor and even my major in English, I knew how to know Credible sources and do your proper research. And so I'm listening to this podcast, and I'm like, first of all, half the time they're using sources from church, and the other time, they're pointing to historical documents that I can look up and find myself. But it was learning that Joseph Smith. Okay, so I knew that Joseph Smith was a treasure digger, but this is the narrative that I grew up with.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:15] I thought everyone back then is searching for gold, and he just needed to make some money. And some rich guy was looking for gold, and Joseph Smith was just a grunt worker digging in the ground, helping this guy find his gold.

John Dehlin [02:23:30] It was literally shovel digging.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:33] Yeah. And the movie that I shared on my mission of the restoration shows him carrying a shovel.

John Dehlin [02:23:39] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:40] Okay. That's the narrative I grew up with.

Ben Jalaff [02:23:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:43] That's not how it went down.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:44] And meantime, him and Emma are having their beautiful romance. Okay. No. You find out that what actually happened is that treasure digging was illegal fraudulent behavior that people got arrested for and charged for, and that Joseph Smith wasn't the one digging the holes. He was actually the one using a rock and a hat to tell people that there was treasure in the ground and to get all these other people to dig for days, I might add, sometimes digging huge holes into the side of hillsides like, this was not small jobs. Okay. And to find out that he did that 40 times, and he got money

John Dehlin [02:24:32] for it, for claiming to have special powers to find hidden buried treasure.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:38] And out of those 40 digs, they never found anything. And it was illegal, and he got arrested.

Ben Jalaff [02:24:46] Oh, man.

John Dehlin [02:24:47] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:48] Like, it was illegal.

John Dehlin [02:24:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:50] And then everything comes unraveling for you, because then you're like, oh, that's why Emma's dad didn't want Emma to marry Joseph Smith. Not because he was some prick, snotty rich guy, which I thought was. Yeah, he's just being a rich, snooty guy who just didn't want Emma to marry someone beneath her. But, no, he actually feared for his daughter because she was getting involved with someone who was fraudulent.

John Dehlin [02:25:13] Yeah. That is what he thought. That is what Isaac Hale thought.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:17] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:18] And he was so demonized. So many people who were demonized in church history, like Lucy Harris, are actually heroes.

John Dehlin [02:25:27] Smart, smart, smart.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:29] Yeah. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Martin Harris is dumb, dumb, dumb. Lucy Harris is smart. She was so smart. And she was a woman of the time. This is like me wanting to, like, history. Women had no say in their finances. They did not own property. Everything went through the man. Everything went through the husband. And here's her Son, stupid husband getting involved in a scam. And she knows it. And she's doing everything in her power to protect her home and her money and whatever power she might hold so that her husband doesn't spend it all on this man. And she was demonized for it. My whole life, I saw her as the bad guy when she was just a woman trying to protect herself.

John Dehlin [02:26:15] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:15] Anyway, so listening to LDS discussions, I listened to that first episode, and that's when I told Ben, I'm not going back to church.

John Dehlin [02:26:22] That was it. You just did what? Did you stop or.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:24] No, I kept going, but that was like. That's all I needed to hear. You just gave me evidence that he was a fraud.

John Dehlin [02:26:32] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:32] And then I told myself, okay, oh, wait, sorry. I told Ben, we're taking a break. We're taking a break. And I said, I need to get through this until I understand what happened with the Book of Mormon. Because how the hell, if this is not the Book of God, how could he have written this?

John Dehlin [02:26:51] The book's too amazing.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:52] The book's too amazing, and it means too much to me. And it was such an important part of my life, and I've been taught my whole life that it's the most correct book on earth. So if he didn't translate it by the power of God, then what happened?

John Dehlin [02:27:09] And what'd you find out?

Justine Jalaff [02:27:12] There's so much. Right? Honestly, just listen to LDS discussions because.

John Dehlin [02:27:19] But the discussions of the Book of Mormon on LDS discussions helped you make more sense of the Book of Mormon,

Justine Jalaff [02:27:24] because Mike constantly talked about the puzzle, right? How this is not like he's grabbing work from other people who did the work before him, but somehow he had that skill set and critical thinking to be able to put it all together in this perspective, that he took all these separate pieces and put it together in this puzzle in which you could see the big, clearer picture. And that's why the CS letter didn't work for me. It didn't help me do that. I didn't understand what all these. All these truth claim puzzle pieces were in all the questions that were being asked in the CS letter.

Justine Jalaff [02:27:58] But with all the discussions slowly over every podcast, he was taking peace by piece by piece and putting it together until finally I was like, okay, I get it now. And for me, what became my mantra in leaving the church was knowledge is power.

Justine Jalaff [02:28:16] And I was like, knowledge. I needed the knowledge. I needed to know the truth claims to give me the power to know that I don't have to stay here. I can leave. Because I had to literally tell myself, if you don't want to be there, Justine, you don't have to be there. You can go.

Justine's Deconstruction and Fear of Leaving

Justine Jalaff [02:28:37] And I had to tell myself that over and over and over again because I would literally cry in bed to Ben, telling him, I think I'm going to be a second class citizen in heaven. I think I'm damning my children. What are we going to do? How are we going to raise our children? The only toolbox I have in parenting is, mother, is Mormonism. How am I going to raise my children outside of Mormonism? How am I going to handle my family? And I would just cry and cry and cry and cry and cry because the knowledge is power. But then when the grief sets in, the something you've been taught your whole life is true and beautiful and trustworthy, and you've.

Justine Jalaff [02:29:16] You've orchestrated your entire life around it to find out that it is a lie hurts so bad. And then you start your deconstruction and you go down the rabbit hole. And that is not an easy process. And at the same time, you have to make phone calls and explain to your family why you're not going back to church.

Justine Jalaff [02:29:41] And that process put me in bed for days, just crying and the grief that I knew that I would never be connected to my family in the same way. Because Mormonism is such a cultural family tradition. It's a culture, it's a spiritual connection, and it's an identity in your family. And when you leave an orthodox Mormon family, you are essentially disconnecting yourself from all of that, which is like your entire family's identity, culture, and spirituality. And I still, to this day, I don't really know how to. I don't know what to do with that.

John Dehlin [02:30:25] So your parents and siblings, as far as you know, for the most part, remain faithful, active Mormons.

Justine Jalaff [02:30:32] Yeah. Except for one sibling.

John Dehlin [02:30:34] Okay, he left before me, and that's

Justine Jalaff [02:30:39] him and his wife.

John Dehlin [02:30:39] Left you to feel disconnected from your family of origin.

Justine Jalaff [02:30:43] It's just because I grew up in a very loving home and Mormonism was a gift. Like, I was raised in a way that Mormonism felt like a gift. And how my parents tried to connect with us in Mormonism was in such a loving way.

Justine Jalaff [02:31:03] And my parents truly believed that what they were giving us was a gift. And I'm essentially telling my mom, I'm taking that gift and I don't want it anymore. And that really, I think, hurts her, hurts my siblings who still believe.

Justine Jalaff [02:31:22] And it hurts me because I'm basically telling you everything that you did for me in this religion. I don't believe it anymore. And I don't want it for my own children, and I don't want it for me. So, essentially, I'm taking this beautiful gift you've given me and I'm checking it.

Justine Jalaff [02:31:45] And like, the. How I've sat with that. It's just the only word I can say is grief. Just a lot of grief. Because I love my family a lot, and I just want them to know that. And I'm just so sorry if I've offended you in this podcast, but this is my story, and I love you.

Justine Jalaff [02:32:12] I love you. Even though you're still in the church, I love you. You don't have to leave, but I had to leave. And I hope you can understand that. I'm not asking any active member of the church to leave because I understand how complex that is, and you might feel, and you probably feel it brings you peace and happiness, and I don't want to take that away from you, but I just need the validation for you to understand that it wasn't working for us. It wasn't working for me and Ben, and for our happiness. We had to go.

Justine Jalaff [02:32:45] We had to leave. And I hope that you canoa. I still love you. And I have to say that my family has shown me unconditional love in this process. It's been a process for them, and they've had their own grief in this, but they have chosen to love me despite me leaving the church. And my mom told me, after a really hard conversation, she said, my love for you is not based on any religious belief. She said, I love you because you're my daughter, and my love for you is unconditional. And I know that that's why it was so hard for me to leave the church, because this is the family that raised me.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:34] So.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:37] And I never questioned because I was in a bubble of love.

John Dehlin [02:33:43] That makes it harder.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:33:45] Yeah, it makes it harder.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:46] And it makes it harder for them to understand because they see so much joy and purpose and. And peace from it.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:57] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:58] And I understand that because I felt that at one time, too. But I don't feel it anymore. And I'm allowed to change.

John Dehlin [02:34:07] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:08] And I'm allowed to be able to navigate my marriage and how I think is the healthiest way possible. And if that means leaving the church so that I can still continue to be in a loving marriage where me and my husband feel like we're in a healthy relationship, then I'm going to do that. Can I just say one more Thing

John Dehlin [02:34:30] I was about to say amen. Oh no, please.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:35] Because I want to speak to, to women in the church. Is that okay?

John Dehlin [02:34:39] Yeah. That's awesome.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:42] When Ben told me that he was walking away from the church and I cried to him, telling him I'm. Am I losing my priesthood holder? I knew at that moment that I was losing my privilege in the church.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:57] I knew in that moment that if I lose my priesthood holder, I lose all privilege. My privilege is through my priesthood holder. Because as a woman in the church, I do not have the priesthood. And if Ben were to leave the church and I were to stay in the church active and faithful, this is what our reality would look like.

Justine Jalaff [02:35:19] My son who was 7, would get baptized by some random priesthood holder. Or maybe my dad and his father and my husband would be sitting there beside me in shame. That's one scenario. Another scenario is I've always had access to the priesthood. My dad was always a worthy priesthood holder. So I always had access to blessings and he always access to anything I needed through the priesthood. Same with Ben. Ben was always a priesthood worthy priesthood holder. I always had access to blessings. If I lose my priesthood holder, I have to go ask my minister, my home teacher, some random dude from the ward. When I'm crying and I'm distraught or I'm sick or my child is sick, I have to go call that random guy and get him to come into my home and bless me and bless my children.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:09] And then I'll be that lady sitting in the ward where everyone's going to talk about her and ward council and say, what can we do to support this woman with the priesthood because her husband has left the covenant path.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:24] And I knew in that moment I was like, that is not going to be my reality in the church. And that was another thing that I was like, it is time to see what the hell Ben has been looking at because I need to know what's going on.

Ben Jalaff [02:36:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:44] Who wants to be that woman in the church? Right.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:47] And there are many women who are.

John Dehlin [02:36:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:50] And they're church also.

John Dehlin [02:36:53] Women are leaving the church at a faster rate than men these days.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:55] Yeah. But I mean, I have someone who in my ward whose husband did leave the church and she chose to remain faithful. And I was in the stake at the time and she was a topic in ward council and her husband was pitied. She was pitied. And how can we help her? And that would have been me. Yeah, no thank you.

John Dehlin [02:37:14] No thanks. No thanks.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:16] Nope. If I'm not going to have that privilege, I don't want to be here. And then that made me realize, wait a second. Why don't I have that privilege? And then it just keeps going.

John Dehlin [02:37:28] Yeah. Well, super powerful. Thank you so much, Justine. That was powerful. We could keep going, and we're gonna. Ben, what was it like to have Justine come around to the point of view you were having? Did you expect it? And what was it like to witness it?

Ben Jalaff [02:37:48] I'm gonna answer that very quickly with this. She's on my right right now.

John Dehlin [02:37:54] She's what?

Ben Jalaff [02:37:54] She's to my right?

John Dehlin [02:37:56] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:37:57] This was the best case scenario when I started listening to you. I will think that that will be my best case scenario. What would I do if I go to Mormon stories and if I have Justine beside me? I'm not going to go into detail, because I don't want to take too long, but the answer is, she's right here with me.

Ben Jalaff [02:38:19] To summarize what I was feeling. It will take too long, but my happy ending is right now. I love her. I want to say this very quickly to Justine's family and to all my friends listening right now and to anybody that will lend their ears to me.

Ben Jalaff [02:38:40] I left the Church because I wanted to be a better human being. The Church did not allow me to do that fully. I tried very hard to fit in a society that did not give me the tools I needed to be that human being.

Ben Jalaff [02:38:56] Did I influence Justine? Maybe I did to some degree. But Justine has her own brain. And when you're lying and when you're hiding information, you can't hide that from somebody that with the intelligence that Justine has to put it together on her own. I didn't tell Justine a single thing. All I told Justine was the church is not true.

Ben Jalaff [02:39:18] She told me not to say anything to her. And she did her own studies, and she came to that conclusion on her own. I love Justine's family. I do. I want them to look at me and to know that I love her to the point where I will protect her with my life.

Ben Jalaff [02:39:40] Same with my children. And I hope that they see this interview and realize that. All I want is to people to look at me and realize all I wanted was just to be a better person. And I couldn't attend that in the church. I couldn't attain that.

Ben Jalaff [02:39:59] I love my friends. That gave me an opportunity to tell them how I felt and accepted me. To my welland brothers, thank you for your friendship, and I will directly tell you to all my well and friends, let go of the band that you once knew and embrace this one that always existed. Because this one is the real one, not the one you thought you knew. The real one is this one. My friends always saw me as a silly, fun guy that might not be serious. Let me tell you something. I mean, Mormon stories in front of John Dehlin and Margi Dehlin telling my Mormon story all the way from Canada.

Ben Jalaff [02:40:45] That should tell you how serious I am when I get to serious things. Okay? Otherwise, I would have never apply and be here. Get to know me now, because the person that I am now is different than the person you thought you knew.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:00] But he's pretty great, and I'm pretty great.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:02] Yeah. And I.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:09] He's the. He's the husband I always wanted.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:14] My marriage got better since I left the church. I couldn't meet the standard that she was seeking because I couldn't give it to her. I stepped away from the church, and Justine and I had discussions where our marriage has gotten so much better.

Deciding to Leave and Telling Their Families

John Dehlin [02:41:30] You mentioned coffee. You have coffee time or something?

Ben Jalaff [02:41:34] Coffee chats.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:34] Yeah. So in our deconstruction and part of our reconstruction is that we. Because, like, when you deconstruct, the church is so all consuming. It takes over every aspect of your life, and you're, like, kind of obsessed. And it was kind of starting to be a lot. So we decided, let's tunnel this more into our coffee chats. So we started drinking.

Justine Jalaff [02:42:02] Well, first, we had already started drinking coffee, and we both really like coffee. And so what? And one thing we really like about coffee is, like, it slows you down, and it's like a communal thing. You can get a cup of coffee and you can go and you can talk for, like, hours.

Justine Jalaff [02:42:19] But we did it in our own home. So we had our coffee pot, and we'd make our own coffee, and then we would have what was called a coffee chat, where we would sit drinking our coffee and just go at it with our deconstruction, which led us to our reconstruction, which has made us realize, oh, this happened in our marriage. This harmed us in our marriage. This is what we want in our marriage. This is what I see is happening now, and this is what I want now. And me finally being able to open up to Ben and tell him, like, I have to back up a little bit.

Justine Jalaff [02:42:55] When I had my faith crisis, I called my friend Shannon and I told her I was talking about Ben needing to be a provider. And she told me, my husband's not a provider for me. I provide for myself financially, but my husband provides for me emotionally, and he provides for me with his compassion and like, he provides for her on emotional level that she needs.

Justine Jalaff [02:43:20] And I was like, wait a second. So you're telling me that provide doesn't necessarily mean bring in money, but it means that Ben provides for me socially because I'm an introvert and Ben's an extrovert and I have basically a good social life because of Ben. Also, he provides for me emotionally. He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good about myself. We love each other's companionship. When we go on dates, we realize, oh yeah, this is why we got married, because we love being around each other. He provides for me with companionship. And then that helps us break down these gender roles and for us to learn, hey, our marriage is so much healthier if we just work as a team and use our strengths together to bring in the money.

Justine Jalaff [02:44:04] Doesn't have to be just you, doesn't have to just be me. But together we can make this work. And the pressure and the stress that that lifted from our relationship with was immense. And we are just like, we still have a lot of things we need to figure out for our future and I still have a lot of stuff I need to figure out for my career. But just taking that pressure off of Ben and looking at more as like us being a team and working together and being companions and getting rid of those gender identified roles has changed our marriage and changed our lives.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:43] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:44:45] And all that came out in our coffee chats.

John Dehlin [02:44:48] Yeah, I love it. Let me ask Ben, can you tell the story of telling your parents that you no longer believed? Do you mind telling that story?

Ben Jalaff [02:45:03] We decided to leave the church in December of 2023 because you were pretty

John Dehlin [02:45:07] estranged from your parents.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:08] Yeah, my relationship with my parents was done at the end of the episode. I would like to say something directly to them. I feel like they deserve to hear that. But when I decided to walk away, Justine and I talked about it and said, let's just keep this secret and just tell a few people. And the first people that came to my mind were my own parents. I'm sorry. I went to my parents house and I told them that me and Justine

John Dehlin [02:45:47] were walking away from the Church of Mormonism.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:50] From Mormonism. My mom, who was the skeptical one, through how the beginning, the very beginning, just broke down in happiness. They had lost me and they got their only son back. They lost four children and the only one surviving one just did not fulfill that for the longest time. So their reaction told me that what I have done was a hundred percent the right thing.

John Dehlin [02:46:33] Did you say your mom fell to the ground.

Ben Jalaff [02:46:34] Yeah. She hugged me. She hugged me and told me that my son is back. My son is back. He will look at my dad and say, poopy, we got him back. We got our son back. I am in Canada because of them.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:04] I'm married to her because of their sacrifice, of them not having fear to pack their bags and go to another country and learn life again. I met my well and friends because my parents. I became a Mormon because of them, because they wanted me. Me to be protected.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:27] They didn't deserve what I did to them. I treated them like a Mormonism, and they didn't deserve that. I have three kids that love my parents and love them more because I'm allowing them to love their culture that they don't know about to see my children love my parents the way they love them now.

Ben Jalaff [02:47:52] My cousins from Colombia who have stepped up, my cousin Otto, Sara Ainsane. They came from the Woodwards. They were always near me. And ever since I stepped away from Mormonism, they just came like a resurgent fire and helped me feel like I was never alone. I love them, and I wish that I never did that to them.

Ben Jalaff [02:48:15] I really wish that it could be different. But I cannot change the past. I can just move forward. And I told my parents, and they handle it very happily, you know? And even when Justine told her friend Shannon, that was also a great validation to me because I felt like I was just looking for validations, that what I'd done was the right thing to do. That really helped.

Justine Jalaff [02:48:45] Yeah. Because Shannon felt like she also got her friend back.

Ben Jalaff [02:48:48] Sorry I broke down that way.

Justine Jalaff [02:48:50] And Ben felt like he. He had been that person that helped bring me back to this. This friendship I always valued. I could never have the way I wanted it to be because of being a Mormon. And so he got a lot of validation when Shannon hugged him and thanked him and said, so thank you for bringing back my friend.

Justine Jalaff [02:49:14] And I have felt like since leaving the church and deconstructing that I was lost. And I'm now starting to find myself, my identity, my confidence. I feel like that was taken from me in motherhood. I lost it. And now I'm starting to get it back, and I'm starting to get my confidence back, and I'm starting to find out who just truly is.

Justine Jalaff [02:49:40] And I do thank Ben, because as much as people might think that he's the reason I. I left the church, I thank him that he was able to help me learn how to critically think for myself, and he did that for me. He Gave me that gift.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:05] Hey.

Justine Jalaff [02:50:08] So I think. I just want to say that I think if there's anything to take away from this, if you're an active member of the church, please understand that people who choose to walk away do it with reason. And please, even if you don't understand why and you can't bring yourself to ask the question why, please reserve judgment and please show empathy and friendship. Don't let those relationships and friendships go. Hold on tight to them, because those people are still the genuine, loving people, you know? Did you see that? Too much. Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:54] I. I want to say this to any member out there watching this. Just because you're okay with the information that is given to you doesn't mean that we all need to be okay with it. As much as we walked away, we support if you stay. All we're asking is please just have empathy for us and with the ex Mormon community as well, have empathy for the people that stay as well.

Ben Jalaff [02:51:22] I heard this from a friend. People that choose religion are generally trying to be good people. And if I don't see it that way with Justine's family, I would never move on from this. They are good people trying to be good people, and that's generally something that is going to help me heal. But please, can we just be kind to each other and just not let something, a view destroy friendship? Friendship is bigger than religion. Friendship is bigger than a political view. Friendship is a person that if you cry, they'll be there to hug you. Family is a person that if someone dies, I'll be there for you.

Ben Jalaff [02:52:04] If something drastically happens in your life, we, your family and friends will be there. And that's what's most important. I made some tough decisions. I've let go of some people in my life that didn't give me the love I was seeking. And that was tough.

Ben Jalaff [02:52:23] But, you know, it is the price you pay when just realizing that you need to make some decision in your life. And that's fine, too.

Justine Jalaff [02:52:32] It's okay to have boundaries in or out of the church as well.

John Dehlin [02:52:38] Super powerful. Wow. I'm just stunned. And this is so beautiful and powerful. We're almost at three hours, and there were still a lot of stuff you had listed around reconstruction. But, you know, parenting, new ethics and morality, new gender roles, you know, grief and happiness. What are the points you want to make, sure you make. Want to make about reconstruction? If. If there's.

Parenting, Reconstruction, and Final Reflections

Justine Jalaff [02:53:12] There's one point I want to talk about is parenting.

John Dehlin [02:53:15] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:53:16] I think when you leave the church, you're so full of fear as to how I'm going to raise my children outside of this. For me, I was so full of fear. But the greatest advice that I was ever. I ever heard about parenting is that you don't need to hear advice from anyone. Because, you know, as a parent, you have an instinct. As a parent, you know what is best for your child more than anybody else, more than a religious institution, more than society and their expectations, more than anything. You know your child, and you know what's best for them, and you will not fail them.

Justine Jalaff [02:53:55] And they will feel your unconditional love because your love will not have conditions. And that is what your children need from you. They need love without conditions. And when I fall back into that trap of, how do I do this? How do I do this? I never drink alcohol. What if my kids start drinking alcohol?

Justine Jalaff [02:54:16] I love my children. They know I love them. They know I'm a safe place. They know I'm not judging them, and I'm allowing them to be their true, authentic selves. And I feel like leaving the church, I gave my children their autonomy. And my children are damn smart and so are yours. And they'll be able to navigate this life as long as they have your support and your love unconditionally.

John Dehlin [02:54:45] Yeah. It's a parenting. I mean, it's going to be hard no matter what.

Justine Jalaff [02:54:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:49] Kids are going to be who they're going to be.

Justine Jalaff [02:54:50] It wasn't easy in the church. It was super hard in the church,

John Dehlin [02:54:53] but we make it more complicated. And that was my biggest fear. I stayed in the church 13 years after I stopped believing, because in my mind, I couldn't raise healthy, moral kids outside of the church. It was a prison of my own making. Or at least I was conditioned. Thank you. That was beautiful. Other things you want to.

Ben Jalaff [02:55:12] Yeah. For me, for my reconstruction, all I'm going to say is one thing. I had told Justine this before I came here. I told Justine, as much as I love Mormon stories. Nemo, the Mormon. Alyssa Grenfell, rfm, Mike, whatever you are.

Ben Jalaff [02:55:31] And to the thousands of people that sat on this chair, what's the name of that? Nick Jones. Nick Jones. Thank you. Because listening to him gave me the courage to apply. But I told Justine, after today, I'm going home and removing my ruckers, and I'm done for good.

Ben Jalaff [02:55:54] My resolution to all of it is I want to be dissociated from this forever. I want to heal, and I want to allow my family to heal as well from it. This has been the toughest two Years of my life and coming here was planting the flag to the end of my journey. And just to finish it off with this, with this, what we're doing right now, to my. To my parents. Do you mind if I say it in Spanish to them?

John Dehlin [02:56:34] Love it. Venezuela or Colombia?

Ben Jalaff [02:56:47] Venezuela. Colombia.

Margi Dehlin [02:56:48] Lodos.

Ben Jalaff [02:57:52] Thank you so much for taking me back to the. The friendships I thought I lost. Thank you for taking me back. And thank you to my parents for raising me well. And to my baseball friends that met with me just recently to tell me that they love me, to show me that love again. Because I've been able to reconnect with people that I had in my life before, and they are all with open arms.

Ben Jalaff [02:58:18] We love you. And for all my well and friends, thank you for being you and for welcoming into your country and to opening the doors of your land to me to adjust to you and your love to every single one of you. I thank you.

Ben Jalaff [02:58:38] I don't resent anything. You gave me the best of Mormonism. I will always treasure that. And I want to say thanks to my wife for choosing me and for giving me the opportunity to show her that I really love her beyond this religion. And that's that. I'm done with all of that. I'm done.

John Dehlin [02:59:07] Powerful. Thank you, Justine.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:10] I love you too. And I love all the friends that have allowed me to change. I have friends who are still active in the church. We have this beautiful friendship group, us moms who had each other in church.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:27] We've become a mix of nuanced, active ex Mormons. And we've stayed friends because we see each other as friends, not in a religion, but as the mom friends that we need. And we love each other. And thank you so much for your love for still inviting me even though you see me change.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:48] And even though I came online and said a few things that you might not have liked or agreed with, you still chose to keep me in your life. Thank you. And thank you for my family. I know this has been really hard for you. It's been really hard for me.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:06] But I love you and that's why it's been so hard. And I want to say thank you to Margi and John de Lynn. You were those voices of hope when I was crying so hard. I didn't know how to move forward with this, but I just kept listening and listening and listening and Mike and LDS discussions. I know that wasn't easy for you to do, but thank you. You have helped so many people, including myself.

Justine Jalaff [03:00:35] And thank you, Mormonism, for making Me feel safe and secure and loved my childhood. I don't need you anymore. But thank you for that.

Ben Jalaff [03:00:48] Awesome.

John Dehlin [03:00:52] Beautiful. So beautiful. Super powerful. I just can't thank you two enough for. For coming here, for coming all that way and for spending. That's good. Six and a half, seven hours today.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:06] I thought this was only gonna be three.

John Dehlin [03:01:08] Well, it was. Part two was three.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:01:13] Yeah. Anyway, thank you all so much. So beautiful.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:17] Thank you. Thank you for giving us this platform and thank you for giving so many people, I think a lot of people who just want to be heard and this is an opportunity for us to feel heard.

John Dehlin [03:01:26] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:27] And that's just really important. So.

John Dehlin [03:01:30] But that's not it. You're going to be the Knicks Jones or whatever to future people. You know what I mean?

Ben Jalaff [03:01:36] Maybe that'd be great if people want to message me and talk about it. Sure. We'll. We'll shoot it. That's fine.

John Dehlin [03:01:41] How do they reach you guys?

Ben Jalaff [03:01:44] Just find me on Facebook Messenger.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:47] I don't know. We're not.

John Dehlin [03:01:48] So it's a Ben Hala. Ben Halaf. J, A, L, A F. F. Yeah. Two Fs.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:01:57] Dos efes.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:58] Dos Efes.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:00] I would say maybe just reach me in the comments of this YouTube video.

John Dehlin [03:02:03] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:04] And I'll try my best to reply to the comments.

John Dehlin [03:02:06] Okay, perfect. All right, thanks, y'. All. This has been really powerful.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:10] Thank you, thank you.

John Dehlin [03:02:12] And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. We couldn't do this without your donations. So those of you who do donate, thank you. Please take a minute to subscribe to this YouTube channel or to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We would love a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

John Dehlin [03:02:30] Likes and comments and subscriptions all help with the algorithm. Finally, if you aren't a monthly donor, but you value this type of content, the way that you can best support us is just to become a monthly donor. And we'll keep providing this content for as long as we have the support for it.

John Dehlin [03:02:50] We would love to invite you to apply to be on Mormon Stories. You can go to MormonStories.org, find the application link, click on it, fill out an application, record a three minute video. Margi and I review every application and we can't accept every application, but we accept the ones that we're able to. And we're always looking for great stories.

John Dehlin [03:03:13] We're always looking for international stories. So today we covered Canada and Venezuela, Colombia. But if you have a Mormon story in the U.S. outside the U.S. we want to hear from you. And you know, we're again, grateful for everyone who makes this possible.

John Dehlin [03:03:37] And Margi had to leave, but I want to thank her as well. Thanks to Maven for doing the time codes has shown us today. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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.