Welcome and Guest Introductions

Carah Burrell [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host for today, Carah Burrell. I am not John De Lynn. John has some family in town, so he asked if I would fill in. And riding sidecar as my co host, we have the wonderful and talented Gerardo Sumano. Hey, Gerardo.

Mark Phillips [00:00:20] Hey, Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:00:21] Thanks so much for joining me. If you guys remember, Gerardo does our lighting and our sound. He also co hosts, um, usually we'll see him more in front of a computer screen hosting things that we do on our more of our live streams, like with Simon Southerton episodes. And he's really good at producing a lot of other great Mormon Stories content. This is the first time that he's ever done this little co host thing with me. So. I'm so grateful that you're here, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:00:46] Yeah, I'm. I'm happy to be here. This is a pretty interesting story today.

Carah Burrell [00:00:51] Yeah. And I'm really glad. You guys will understand why in a minute. Why I'm glad that Gerardo is here for this one. And we are missing John today. But it's all right. You guys are going to get a fabulous and interesting Mormon Stories podcast episode, as always. So I would like to welcome our guest today, Mark Anzell. Phillips, right? Phillips, that's right. All right, Mark and Zelle Phillips, they came out all the way from Alabama. Zelle was also just attending byu. Idaho. Correct. So we're gonna get into their Mormon story and they have a really interesting background. Mark is trained. He has a doctorate degree, Baylor University in clinical psychology, and has worked with LDS Family Services. He's worked with at the va, Correct?

Mark Phillips [00:01:40] Yes, that's right.

Carah Burrell [00:01:41] And was. Has also served in Kentucky as a branch president. And then Zel also kind of attempted to serve a mission kind of during COVID And when that hit. Right. Is attempted a fair way to say it?

Zelle Phillips [00:01:55] It was something.

Carah Burrell [00:01:56] It was an attempt. And we're also going to get into their faith journey together as a family and kind of how things all came about. We're going to get into Zel's sexuality and what happened there. And is there anything else off the top of your heads that you want to add to that kind of mere introduction of me doing a John Dylan impersonation?

Mark Phillips [00:02:20] I think that was great.

Carah Burrell [00:02:22] Okay, so starting off, just want to thank you guys for coming on out. They drove out from Alabama and went, what, you picked up Z last couple days yesterday in Idaho and drove down. So that's incredible. We're grateful that they're here. So without any further to Do. Are you guys ready to get into this, this interview?

Mark Phillips [00:02:46] Yeah, definitely.

Carah Burrell [00:02:47] All right, Hardo, any other, any other comments? Anything else you want to say?

Gerardo Sumano [00:02:51] No. Well, there's, there's some, you know, not parallels, but just some similarities between my story and Zel's and Mark's story. You know, byu, Idaho, I think Zel went to the MTC in Mexico City, which is where I went. And so, yeah, this. I'm pretty excited. That's it.

Carah Burrell [00:03:12] Yeah, that's exactly why I'm grateful that you're here. There's. You have a lot to speak to on that. If you guys remember, Harto had a Was it two part Mormon Stories episode about growing up in Mexico and what it was like to grow up gay, go through a lot of conversion therapy through the church, and be dating and engaged and married basically at P. Idaho, it's kind of on the DL and stuff. So if you guys haven't checked that out, make sure to check out Gerardo's Mormon Stories episode. All right, so let's get into it. Mark, why don't we start with you and just kind of tell us your background and where your Mormon stories begins.

Mark's Childhood and Growing Up in the Church

Mark Phillips [00:03:47] Yeah, so I, I was born in Michigan, but I, I grew up a lot of my younger years in Iowa. And so we were in the mission field, which is a phrase I always hated my whole life when people in Utah would say that. But I grew up in a very strong and active LDS family.

Mark Phillips [00:04:06] The church was extremely important to us. My mother comes from pioneer stock. My great, great, great, great grandfather was Abraham Hunsaker, who joined the church in Nauvoo and eventually came across the plain, served in the Mormon battalion, had five wives.

Mark Phillips [00:04:24] And so that's what I grew up with that as our background. Although we always, we never lived in Utah or the west my whole growing up. So my formative years, I grew up in Iowa and we attended a strong ward there in the Cedar Falls, Iowa ward. And we had great people there.

Mark Phillips [00:04:44] We had a great, I had great friends there. We had a great scouting program, which is something that I really loved and loved getting out and camping and had an awesome scouting leader who would take us on hikes and took us out all the way to the Grand Canyon from Iowa to do like a five day hike. And so just, I loved it. And I, as a young kid was, was, I think maybe more than is normal interested in church doctrine and things like that. I would argue with Sunday school teachers when I thought they had things wrong.

Mark Phillips [00:05:22] I was not the kid that would sit in the Back of the class with my mouth closed, they would say something and I would think, no, I don't think that's right. And I would try to correct them and make sure everybody was on the straight and narrow.

Mark Phillips [00:05:34] So that was a lot of my growing up in Iowa. It was really positive, my experiences of, you know, coming of age. I lived there till I was 14, so starting to go to, you know, youth dances and things like that. Like, me and my best friend in the church, we were super excited. And, you know, if it was like a 70s dance, we were gonna, like, go all out and. And, you know, just had a lot of fun. So it was a good upbringing.

Carah Burrell [00:06:02] So did you have any specific spiritual experiences you must have, like, attended early morning seminary and had pressure to go on a mission. Do you feel like, looking back at that time that you had real strong spiritual, like, inclination to do what was right, to follow God, to follow Jesus, to follow what your church leaders wanted you to do? Do you feel like that came from your parents, from an actual higher power, from your culture and the church pressure? Just kind of like, would you describe how that influenced your decisions?

Mark Phillips [00:06:33] Yeah, yeah, that. So my. So again, my mother was pioneer stock. My father was actually a convert when he was 17. But then as a farm boy from Pennsylvania, served a mission in Hong Kong in, like, 1967. So he was all in.

Mark Phillips [00:06:49] So I grew up with that influence, and I definitely credit my mother's influence. If you want to learn how to raise kids in the gospel, you should take lessons from my mother. As far as I'm concerned. I had. Yeah, I had extreme. I feel like, personally, a very strong relationship with. With God specifically. I prayed a ton when I was a kid. I would just pray mentally about things and just felt like I had a great relationship with. With my heavenly Father.

Mark Phillips [00:07:17] I. The then, you know, I think my relationship with Jesus, in my view, came a little bit later. But. But so I just. I thought, you know, that, you know, prayer was all important. And I did. I felt the spirit, you know, I felt that influence my life.

Mark Phillips [00:07:38] When I would make mistakes or mess up, I would. I would be, I think, kind of hard on myself internally. And I would sometimes lie in bed and I would wonder, like, if I know the importance of all this, like, why do I make mistakes sometimes? Like, why. Why can't I know how important this is? I want. I want to go to the celestial kingdom and why.

Mark Phillips [00:07:58] Why do I do some of the, you know, things? And my. Things were, like, acting up in school and getting in trouble and not Doing my homework and things like that. But I would question my. Like, why do I do that? Like, I know I should be doing all this stuff, but. But I just. I don't sometimes. So I had, you know, maybe a little bit of some. Some guilt related to that.

Sexual Shame and Bishop Interviews as a Youth

Carah Burrell [00:08:16] And did you ever have to go see the bishop? Were you whatsoever, like, involved with girls or. There's a lot of shame and sexual shame that goes on in a lot of Mormon teen upbringings. Was that a problem for you at all?

Mark Phillips [00:08:30] You know, at that younger age? I was in Iowa till 14, so up at that younger age a little bit. So I did. You know, I knew I wasn't supposed to date Till I was 16, but I did really like girls and started having little girlfriends in sixth and seventh grade. And I got involved in a theater group when I was about 13, and those girls were super cool. And so I did a little sneaking around. Like, nothing serious, but some kissing and stuff like that when I was, like, 13, 14. And I did feel guilty about that because I would kind of keep it from my parents. Like, they knew I talked to girls on the phone all the time. That was back in the days with corded phones. And you'd stretch it out into your bedroom and be talking to girls.

Carah Burrell [00:09:19] They can pick it up from their bedroom and be like, mark's talking to a girl on the phone.

Mark Phillips [00:09:23] Right, right. I was talking to girls. But my older brothers had both done that a lot, too. But I kept it secret that I was going with these girls. That was the phrase we used growing up in Iowa. We were going together. We didn't date because we didn't have any place to go, but we would just talk on the phone. And if we got together and we were private, we might kiss a little bit. And so there was a little bit of guilt, but I didn't think I was doing anything too bad.

Mark Phillips [00:09:49] So now, as I got older, I moved to Alabama when I was 14, and that's when seminary started. You know, I love my first. It's so funny now. My first year of seminary was Doctrine and Covenants, and it was church history. And I just loved it. I loved it so much.

Mark Phillips [00:10:07] And I've always loved history. And so I just learned all this stuff and all these stories about, you know, church history and, you know, going back to, you know, Kirtland and Nauvoo. And, you know, I knew in Nauvoo, that's when some of my ancestors were joining the church. And that was really cool. So I loved seminary my first year or Two and.

Mark Phillips [00:10:30] But when, I will say with the church. When I moved to Alabama at 14, there were some major changes for me. There was some major culture shock moving from Iowa to Alabama in 1989 for me. And that extended to the church because the kids at the Birmingham First Ward that I attended didn't seem to really like me or accept me very much, which was a really hard thing. I'd never experienced that before in that way. Like at my ward growing up in Iowa, all the kids were my friends and we were all close and I felt like it was a great experience. But I got here and for some reason these kids didn't like me very much.

Mark Phillips [00:11:12] I felt like. And so that was hard. And I did. I went to my first two years of seminary, but I was in school, really involved in band, and we had early morning band practices and so I just kind of.

Carah Burrell [00:11:22] What instrument did you play?

Mark Phillips [00:11:23] I was a drummer on the drum line, played the pit most years. I was doing the xylophones and marimbas and stuff on the sideline. So, yeah, so I actually didn't complete my last two years of seminary. Like, I went to a little bit my junior year and then kind of dropped out my senior year. I think I literally went to like the first three classes and then just dropped out. So that's my one big mark on my LDS credentials is I'm an Eagle Scout and I'm a returned missionary. But I did not graduate seminary because I like to sleep in the morning. And I went to band practices early morning and I was not about to do the home study workbook to make up the classes I missed. And my mother finally gave up on me on that account. And. And so I didn't graduate seminary.

Carah Burrell [00:12:13] I mean, I don't know how anyone goes to seminary so early morning seminary. People live out of the state of Utah or whatever.

Mark Phillips [00:12:20] Yeah, it's a huge community.

Carah Burrell [00:12:21] I won't clutch my pearls too hard on that one. I'm not too shocked. But yeah, that. That must have made your parents really disappointed in you and thinking that you're going to go off the deep end or something next or were they too concerned?

Mark Phillips [00:12:32] Yeah, I don't know. I. You know, I. Now that's one thing. My parents were worried about me a lot as a youth. Not so much about church stuff, but more I had some philosophical differences with the way the American education system worked and didn't believe in doing homework all the way through high school and barely graduated high school because of that. So they were worried about that. I think A lot. I think they were worried. My junior and senior year I got a serious girlfriend who was not a member of the church. And so I think they probably worried about that a little bit too.

Carah Burrell [00:13:08] Was she like Christian? Was she non religious?

Mark Phillips [00:13:10] Yeah, she was Baptist and so she was Baptist and I was Mormon and. And we found out many years later that many. For many years we both hoped the other one was going to convert, but neither one did. But, but we dated. We dated for a long time. So. But we started dating in high school and. And yeah, I think they worried a little bit about that.

Race, the Priesthood Ban, and Early Doubts

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:31] So Mark, you mentioned on your outline about having a friend that was a person of color and then that kind of like starting to put thoughts on your mind about maybe the relationship with the church and racial issues.

Mark Phillips [00:13:50] Yeah. So just by coincidence, even though I lived in this little, you know, very predominantly white town in Iowa, our two door down neighbor happened to be an African American family. And so Brandon Love was one of my best friends from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade when I left Iowa. And he would spend the night at my house and I'd spend the night at his house and he loved my mom's pancakes. And you know, it just, you know, we were just, we were best friends and we. And so that as I got older, definitely by the time I missed. But that started, that always caused me concerns when I started learning about the history of the. What that time, you know, people always referred to as blacks in the priesthood, which, but you know, called the temple and priesthood ban for black people of black African descent.

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:45] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [00:14:47] So. Yeah, so that, that, I guess that informed my thinking. I think to some degree that that made me think a lot about racial issues. Especially when at 14 I moved to Alabama and all of a sudden it was this whole different thing. Instead of there being just a couple of black kids in my whole school class and I happened to be best friends with one of them. I went into a lunchroom and saw 30% of the student body sitting on one side and 70% sitting on the other side of the lunchroom. And it was divided by race, but completely voluntarily.

Mark Phillips [00:15:22] So, so that those. So that became something I thought a lot about as growing up were just racial type issues which I think, you know, influenced me, you know, throughout my life. Really. That, that, that I think it shows the power of, of personal relationships to, to change our thinking or influence our thinking. But in that case it was just having this African American best friend growing up.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:46] Yeah, in Mormonism there is this idea that doctrine does not change.

Zelle Phillips [00:15:51] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:51] And that. And that the things that we do today in the church are the same as Adam and Eve were doing it in the garden. And when, you know. So I think. And you can tell me if that's kind of like maybe some of the thoughts you were having, but like having a band that was in place for a long time in the church and then that was later removed.

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:16] That's a change, a big change. And then also during that time, I bet, like, the. The rhetoric around race was kind of like changing in the church. They were not talking as much about the curse of Cain and that kind of stuff. They're maybe parting away from it, like the brethren, maybe the members still. But there's definitely like. And division, you know, like, there could be division in the wards and stuff between, like, members, what they think about it, just because the rhetoric is changing at the top. So is that something that was concerning you?

Mark Phillips [00:16:50] Yeah, it was of interest to me during those teenage years. And I do remember not, I wouldn't say being taught, but hearing about those ideas in seminary as a kid in Alabama. And definitely in defense of my seminary teacher, I would say I was not taught that this is doctrine, but we had discussions a couple of times about, you know, this was in the early 90s, you know, the late 80s, early 90s. So, you know, the priesthood, you know, ban and priesthood, temple ban had only been lifted 12 years before.

Mark Phillips [00:17:24] So we would in classes talk about why was that in place? Because even by that point, it just like, to most people, I think it didn't make sense. Like, of course, obviously, you know, we shouldn't be prohibiting people of color from, or, you know, African Americans or people of black African descent from having the priesthood and going to the temple. So I think, you know, it's to everybody's credit. I don't think I experienced a lot of overt racism in Alabama going to church at that time. But. But yeah, that was still discussed. Like, why is it? Well, I've heard that, you know, it was among.

Mark Phillips [00:17:57] You know, I've heard that it was because they weren't as valiant in the war between heaven. And I remember hearing somebody like, maybe a certain number of generations had to pass away before this was lifted and now they could you have the priesthood for that reason. So that was something I definitely thought about and definitely didn't understand. But at that age, it was. Yeah, it was more of a curiosity than. Than. Than a concern.

Carah Burrell [00:18:27] Do you remember in your wards in Alabama, you said that it was a lot of people of color? Do you remember that? If there were black members in your ward there. Because that's just crazy to think that being in a ward where just a few years ago, you're looking around and those people wouldn't have been able to be sealed in the temple or hold priesthood or hold, you know, leadership callings.

Mark Phillips [00:18:48] Yeah. And, yeah, so there were. There were a few black members in our ward. Not. Not very many. Our stake in the early 80s had created something called the Birmingham Third Branch, which was like an inner city branch.

Mark Phillips [00:19:03] And so I think there's two ways to look at that. You know, one is they were trying to take the church to the people. The other way to look at it, which is the way came to view it eventually, but is, you know, in Alabama, they gave blacks the priesthood and then they developed a segregated branch for them, you know.

Mark Phillips [00:19:19] But I was aware of that branch because people from our ward would be called to that branch to help out with leadership. And they would, like a guy with a van would be called to go pick up people on Sunday morning, and they would go on through, you know, through the downtown area and picking up folks that were investigators or people that had been baptized to take them to church.

Mark Phillips [00:19:39] So I had a very interesting experience when I was 16. In our ward or in our stake, we had the opportunity, if we were young men and priests, to serve a mini mission. And that's practiced at different times within the church in different ways. But in this way, they actually sent me to Montgomery, Alabama for two weeks during the summer. And I, for two weeks lived with a pair of missionaries and did everything with them. And they were in Montgomery and they were in an inner city ward. And they. And we spent the whole time in the housing projects. And so that was.

Mark Phillips [00:20:13] And we did. And that congregation was, you know, at least 50% African American, if not more, that we attended. And so that was a different thing for me. In fact, I remember coming back and giving my report in priesthood about my mini mission experience.

Mark Phillips [00:20:29] And I just said it was a new being. I felt like, honest, it was a new experience for me to experience being in being a minority and being in a majority black congregation. And afterwards I had two or three people say, like, didn't you see brother? So? And so, like, we had one black man in priesthood meeting. Didn't you see him in the front row? Like, why did you say that? And I, like, I didn't think that was offensive to him to say that. For me, that was a new experience.

Mark Phillips [00:20:55] But it was like, you had to treat these black members with. With kid gloves kind of like that, you know, like you have to make sure you're almost like overly polite, you know, and don't bring up anything about race, don't say race, you know, so that, that maybe was something so.

Carah Burrell [00:21:13] Because for most people, you who don't know how Mormon congregations are set up a lot different than other ones, that you have a geographic boundary that you have to attend your ward within and it's very difficult to try to transfer your, your membership records to a different one. So you're just kind of saying like if they wanted to make sure that the black members stayed with their own kind in like a very racist way, they would have wanted to create a branch so that they would stay there and not come out to like maybe the white suburbs where other people were attending. You know, kind of what you meant.

Mark Phillips [00:21:47] It would. Yeah, I mean you could take the motivations for it a lot, like I say, several different ways. But yeah, that's the way kind of I eventually viewed it that now you can say too that they were trying to make a building that was closer to where these. All of a sudden we have this new population of people that are being baptized and they lived in the more urban areas in Birmingham. But to me it just looked too much like segregation. I was in freaking Alabama in the early 90s and we had a black congregation and we had white congregations. It just looked too much like segregation. And so that bothered me a little bit.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:26] I've never heard of anything like that. I mean we hear here in Utah about, you know, the Tongan words and, or Hispanic words. But that's because they have a different language. But doing it based on race. That's, that's.

Mark Phillips [00:22:41] And it certainly was not overtly based on race. It was still like, like Carah said, it was based on geography.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:47] Right.

Mark Phillips [00:22:48] You know, but, and members from there were always members from the more solid, you know, numerically solid and time in the church, solid congregations who were called to serve in leadership or things like that. So the congregations were certainly always, you know, those smaller congregations, those branches always had, you know, a mixture of people in them as far as race. But, but yeah, they were, they were created to, to help these folks that were newer in the church grow and develop and you know, and, and, but it looked very much like some segregation and that, that bothered me.

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:33] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:23:34] Because it's hard to think that after Jim Crow, after civil rights movement, that as much as the church could have really good, well intentioned people trying to push race issues and make sure that things are as desegregated as possible. You're still going to have a lot of holdovers, correct me if I'm wrong, in the south that are still used to the old segregated ways, even into the 70s, 80s, 90s.

Mark Phillips [00:23:59] Sure. And if you looked at the school systems, you would have seen the same way. I mean, they're obviously legally integrated, but the Birmingham city schools were majority black and the suburban schools were majority white. I mean, you know, that was. So the geography played a big part in it. Maybe just of significance. There are two stakes in the Birmingham area at that time. One is the Birmingham stake and one is the Bessemer stake. Both stakes did this. Both stakes created an inner city branch like that. So ours was the Birmingham Third Ward or Birmingham Third branch. And then the Bessemer state created the Inslee branch, which just closed fairly recently. Whereas the Birmingham third branch, then Birmingham third ward, closed 10, 12 years ago.

Carah Burrell [00:24:43] Oh, really?

Mark Phillips [00:24:44] The church had a building and everything. They sold the building.

Carah Burrell [00:24:46] Wow.

Mark Phillips [00:24:47] And they decided to take a different. Different way at things.

Carah Burrell [00:24:50] Fascinating. So how else did your being raised in the south, do you think, influence your ideas about maybe not even Mormonism, but just the world at large? Like, I. I have only been to the south, like, twice.

Mark Phillips [00:25:02] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:25:02] And it feels like it's kind of a different world than, you know, the Mountain West. So what else do you think kind of like, helped fill in the lens of how you viewed the world from not just Mormonism, but I guess all of the things for race or choosing to serve a mission and going out and wanting to see the broader world. Do you have anything else you wanted to say about being raised in the South?

Mark Phillips [00:25:25] Yeah, and I, you know, I moved there when I was 14, so for me, it was. I was very conscious of some of the contrasts between at least the Midwest and the south, and some things I liked and some things I really didn't like.

Mark Phillips [00:25:37] But the, you know, one of the difference when it comes to racial issues is they were real. You know, it wasn't hypothetical. Like, I felt like when I would come to Utah and visit my cousins, like, you know, they might have, you know, expressed some thought that people in the south are racist. I was like, but there's almost no interaction between at that time. You know, there are almost no people of color in Utah to even, you know, again, you have a few in your school. And a lot of times my experience, you know, they kind of, like, stand out. And people treat them really well because, you know, they're like celebrities.

Mark Phillips [00:26:14] Like, you know, hey, this is the one black person I know but in the south, it's a real thing. You know, you've got large groups of people, and large groups of people interact in different ways. So that was very. At that time for me. I still don't understand. It was very confusing for me. I couldn't understand. Again, I couldn't understand my cafeteria. I couldn't understand why nobody was making anybody do this. The white kids or the black kids.

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:36] But.

Mark Phillips [00:26:36] But they all sound different sides. And, you know, we had. There were. There were interchanges. I mean, there were friends. We. We had. You know, I don't want to make it, you know, too extreme, but. But, you know, I was in band, and obviously we had. We had people of all backgrounds in the band, and I had friends that.

Carah Burrell [00:26:58] That.

Mark Phillips [00:26:59] Of all backgrounds. But. But it was. Yeah, it was.

Zelle Phillips [00:27:03] It was.

Mark Phillips [00:27:03] It was still. It was something that was there, you know, hanging around. I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, but.

Carah Burrell [00:27:09] Yeah. So before we move on to your mission, Harada, do you have any other questions? No. Okay. So do you mind if we jump into your mission?

Mission Preparation, Marriage, and Life in Alabama

Mark Phillips [00:27:17] So, yeah, sure.

Carah Burrell [00:27:18] So where did you get called? What did you think of your call? And tell me just more about how that experience went down.

Mark Phillips [00:27:26] Yeah, yeah. No, and so. And leading up to that, you know, I was. I had always planned on serving a mission. I always knew I was gonna serve a mission. I had two older brothers who both served missions. I had six uncles on my mom's side who'd served a mission. My dad had served a mission. Like, there was no question. Like, I knew that was what I was supposed to do. There was no question about that. So, yeah, so I.

Mark Phillips [00:27:44] So I put in my papers and I really wanted to go someplace exotic or different. I really wanted to learn a language. And I got the call to Honduras, Tegucigalpa mission. And I was super stoked about it when I got it. I didn't know exactly where Honduras was. I wasn't sure if it was, like, in South America or if it was an island. For sure. It's in Central America for those who don't know.

Mark Phillips [00:28:06] And I couldn't pronounce Tegucigalpa. I even went to my stake president's interview to get ready to go to the temple. And I remember saying Tegucigalpa. And my Sikh president had served a Spanish speaking mission. He's like, I think it's Tegucigalpa, but I've been mispronouncing it for like, you know, a month or two. At that point. I was looking forward to going to Taguchi Galpa.

Mark Phillips [00:28:29] But I don't know why I thought so. Yeah, I was super excited and I was still dating this non member girl and she had a pretty hard time with it. I think maybe that was something for her that she thought maybe eventually like the time would come and she could talk me out of it and I wouldn't go. And, and she, she really, I mean she at one point just like asked me like, just don't go. And I was like, I gotta do this, you know, I'm definitely going. There was really never a question in my mind.

Mark Phillips [00:28:57] So I went to the mtc and I absolutely loved the mtc. I have been kind of a rebel my whole life in a lot of areas and so especially in like school and always get into arguments and things with teachers and stuff. But I kind of, I took God's authority differently and to me, you know, priesthood leaders, that was God's authority. And I knew they could be wrong and things like that. But. But I really tried my best to rein in that rebellious side. And so I went to the mtc and my idea was I was going to be totally and completely obedient. And so that's what I did.

Mark Phillips [00:29:29] And I spent eight weeks in the MTC at that time was if you were a language learner. And I tried to be completely and utterly obedient. And I had a great district and a great companion. And after we'd been there for a couple of weeks, I was called into the branch president's office.

Mark Phillips [00:29:44] And, and so in the MTC you got your MTC mission president, but in the Provo MTC you have the missionaries organized into branches, which usually consists of like four or five at that time districts. And each district had 10 or 12 missionaries in it. So I was called into the branch president's office and he presided over these 50 or 60 missionaries going to different parts of the world. My whole district was going to Latin America, most of us, Honduras, a couple others to other places. I get called in the branch president's office and I'm like super scared. And I'm like, has the Spirit told him that maybe I messed up a little bit with my girlfriend and hadn't fully confessed it or something?

Mark Phillips [00:30:21] And I was super nervous. And he's like, Elder Phillips, I think he said, is there anything that would stop the Spirit from being with you? Or something like that? And I'm super nervous. And I'm like, no. But I was a little nervous. And he's like, well, I want to call you to be My assistant.

Mark Phillips [00:30:41] So I was the branch president's AP in the mtc. So I was over, like, these five districts, and I love that experience, too. We had missionaries that went to a district that went to Germany and a couple that were stateside, and they would go through quicker because they were only there for three weeks, but the foreign language speakers were there for two months. Loved my MTC experience, and, yeah, that was great. So then we finally got to get on the plane and go to Honduras, and again, I was super stoked. And six of us from my district went to the same mission in Honduras, and we were close through our whole missions.

Mark Phillips [00:31:15] But I got to Honduras, and I was super excited, too. One of my older brothers had served a mission in Brazil four years before that, and we had gotten to go down for, like, a week and a half and visit his mission when he came home. So I had, like, a little bit of experience being in Brazil. So I thought, oh, okay, I kind of know what this is going to be like going to Latin America.

Mark Phillips [00:31:36] And Honduras was much poorer than even Brazil had been. And so it was definitely a bit of a culture shock. But I felt like I was kind of ready for that. I knew it was going to be different, and I was super stoked. And, yeah, I was just excited to be there.

Serving a Mission in Honduras

Carah Burrell [00:31:54] Did you have any apprehension with learning a new language or were you able to pick it up and communicate?

Mark Phillips [00:32:02] Yeah, no. So in middle school and high school. In middle school, I took one semester of Spanish, and. And I was terrible at it, and I hated it. And I hated Senora Finley, who was our Spanish teacher, Rosa Finley.

Mark Phillips [00:32:17] And I said after that, if I ever am going to learn language, it'll be on my mission. And I never took Spanish in high school or anything. And back then, you could get away with that. I didn't take a language in high school, and so I was a little nervous about that. And in the mtc, I found it difficult to memorize. I was probably the worst memorizer in my district, as you would get these. We'd get listed, like, 25 words, like, every day that we're supposed to add to our vocabulary. And I felt like I was really good at comprehending, like, the grammar and stuff like that, but.

Mark Phillips [00:32:44] But the. I was so. I was a little scared going into Honduras, but I did pick up the language quite, quite quickly. And after a few months, my mission president, I don't know if he said this to all the missionaries, but told me that I was the best Spanish speaker of my district that had come down Together. And so I. I wrote my Gerardo Quizm.

Carah Burrell [00:33:00] Just kidding.

Mark Phillips [00:33:04] Okay, Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:33:07] I took Spanish in sixth grade. Uno.

Mark Phillips [00:33:15] My Spanish is definitely a bit rusty now. It's been a few years, but one of the cool things in my mission was there were very few Americans compared to Latino missionaries. When I got there, we were only the second or third group of Americans that had come back into Honduras. Again, the church sometimes doesn't tell all the information you'd like to know, but I never knew exactly what had happened. But about a year before we had gone to Honduras, all the American missionaries had been taken out of Honduras, and we were the second or third group to go back. So in my mission at that time of 130 missionaries, when I got there, there were, like, 18 or 20Americans there.

Mark Phillips [00:33:52] So it was very dominated by Guatemalan missionaries. Actually, they had taken a lot of missionaries from the Guatemalan missionaries that were Guatemalan and sent them down to Honduras to replace the American missionaries who then finished their missions in Guatemala. So my whole first year, every campaign I had was from Guatemala. So that was really good for my language, I guess, is what I'd say.

Carah Burrell [00:34:15] You never get a break where you get to, like, take off your shoes, take off your jacket at the end of the day, and just talk in English to your companion. Talk in Spanish.

Mark Phillips [00:34:22] Nada.

Carah Burrell [00:34:23] Nada.

Mark Phillips [00:34:24] No. Yeah. And that was hard. I will say that my first four months of my mission were very hard, and probably one of the times I got the closest to being depressed in my life because I was mute, you know, I was stuck 24 7, and I could only. I could barely communicate for those first few months.

Mark Phillips [00:34:44] And that was. I do like to talk, you know, and it was hard for me, and it was hard to not communicate, not talk about my ideas. And, like, we would have district meeting, so this is a great example of mission culture. We'd have district meeting. And there was one other missionary early on who was actually from my MTC district that was in my district. And once a week, I'd go to district meeting, and I would see Elder Baird that first couple of first month or two, and we would. We would start talking in English, and our companions would be like. In Espanol, they would be like, no, like, don't speak English.

Mark Phillips [00:35:17] And luckily, because I am a bit of a rebel, I very quickly was like, screw you. I'm speaking English for this hour that I get to be with Elder Baird. Like, we are going to talk English because I've got things I need to say to somebody, you know, so that Was hard those first few months, just some of the, you know, the adaptation. I was in very small towns in Honduras, which I loved. I mean, it was beautiful. I loved it, but it was still. It was still a hard adaptation. And I did reach a time, a few weeks in, where I actually made a deal with God.

Mark Phillips [00:35:49] I said, I don't know if I can do this for two years. Like, if it continues like this, this is too hard. I can't do. But I can do this for six months. So I'm gonna keep going for six months, putting one foot in front of the other. And if, when I get to the end, it's better, I'll keep going, but if not, I'm going home. And so I did. So I did. And I put one foot in front of the other. And after about four months, it got a lot. My language started to come and I started being able to communicate better with my companion.

Mark Phillips [00:36:13] I got a new companion who was a young in the mission from Guatemala. I'm still friends with him on Facebook. Carlos, if you see this, hey. But I don't think he will. And things turned around. And so after that, from there on, I was very happy in the mission after that first four month point, through the rest of my mission, generally speaking,

Carah Burrell [00:36:36] and what was like the predominant religion and culture? Did you have a tough time baptizing people into the Mormon church? Were people receptive? How did, how did your baptisms go?

Mark Phillips [00:36:48] Yeah, so, you know, obviously, you know, the predominant religion is supposedly Catholicism. But in the small towns and poor neighborhoods that we spent, extremely small percentage were in anything that you would consider actively Catholic. The evangelical churches were really making inroads by that time. And you would, you know, you would have a cathedral or a big Catholic church in the middle of town. You'd go there on Sunday morning, there'd be like 20 people there, but you could walk through the nation neighborhoods in these poor neighborhoods, and there'd be like a little Pentecostal church and. And it would be full of people shouting and clapping and stuff like that.

Mark Phillips [00:37:25] So Protestantism was really making inroads, at least in. In the poor communities where I was, I think from what I've heard, like in the wealthier parts, people were more very still very Catholic, you know, but so, so, yeah, so we. So my bad, my mission was very numbers driven, especially early on, is that

Carah Burrell [00:37:47] by influence of your stake president, the

Mark Phillips [00:37:49] mission president, they kind of put down

Carah Burrell [00:37:51] the hammer of what you're expected to do.

Mark Phillips [00:37:53] So when I got there, that was another culture shock. Is my mission President was a really great guy named Solomon Yar. He was 32, from what I understand, when he was called as mission president. So he's like 33 when I got there. And he was a go.

Carah Burrell [00:38:07] Imagine me as a man, as a mission President. I am 32. I would not be able to.

Mark Phillips [00:38:11] Yeah, absolutely. And he was an exceptional person, I will say. But at the same time, I think he had gotten baptized, like, in his late teens. I mean, I'm sitting here sometimes. It would occur to me, like, I've been a member of the church longer than my mission president has, you know, and that came across in certain ways. Like, so in the mtc, we had learned that, you know, I think in reaction to some of the bad stuff that happened in the past. Like, we mission presidents don't set goals for missionaries. Companionships get together and set their own goals and things like that. And I arrive at my first area, and there's, like, this.

Mark Phillips [00:38:41] This, like, sign plastered on the door that had been printed out at the mission office. It was like, every companionship in the month of March or April or whatever it was, we'll have eight baptisms because we have faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Mark Phillips [00:38:57] And it was communicated that if you didn't get eight baptisms that month, it was because of your falta de fe. It was because of your lack of faith. Right. And that was driven into us hard by our mission president was like, if you didn't accomplish these goals, like, God obviously wants this to happen. So if it's not happening, then it's because of your lack of faith.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:16] So who was setting that goal?

Mark Phillips [00:39:18] That was the mission president.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:19] Okay, the mission. But then mission. But then companionships were encouraged to set their own goals.

Mark Phillips [00:39:25] That's what we had learned in the mtc.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:27] Oh, but that's not what was happening.

Mark Phillips [00:39:28] Right. So when I got down there, I'm thinking, well, this is kind of weird.

Gerardo Sumano [00:39:32] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [00:39:32] You know, because the mtc, that's what they said we were going to be doing. But my mission president and, like, sometimes I would every once in a while say something to my mission president. Like when I had the chance at a zone meeting or something, Zone conference, we were taught that we're. And he's like, well, that was Provo. This is Honduras. You know, that was one of his things. He would say, he's like, it's different down here in Honduras. So, yeah, high demand for baptism. And just by chance, my second companion happened to be an awesome baptizer. And so I got the honor through my whole mission of that my second or third month in the mission, me and my companion.

Mark Phillips [00:40:06] Of course, I could barely speak Spanish at the time, so it was mostly. My companion baptized 42 people in one month. And so we had the mission record for my whole. The whole rest of my mission. I had been the companion of Elder Dubon, who. And together we had baptized 42 people.

Mark Phillips [00:40:23] And we were awesome. And there was literally a picture of us. There were two pictures of us on the wall in the mission office one day, I think we had baptized, like, 18 people one Sunday. And we did it in a river. And we had a line of people dressed in white, like the surrounding district leaders and stuff, and gotten all their white clothes together and brought them over. And so we took one of these pictures with us, like, standing in the water and this line of 18 people with us, like, ready to baptize them. And they kind of mimicked some of these pictures that had come out in, like, the ensign in Liahona in the early 80s of some of these lines in Africa.

Mark Phillips [00:40:58] There had been these pictures of these people lining up to get baptized. And it was like we recreated that picture. And my mission president loved it. And he blew it up like this big and was in a frame thing on the mission wall. My whole mission.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:13] Did you have a mission newspaper?

Mark Phillips [00:41:15] Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:17] Because my parents served in Oaxaca around the same time, and they had mission mission newspapers. And then they would highlight the most baptizing missionaries on there.

Mark Phillips [00:41:28] And then everybody could see and everybody's baptisms were listed in. So you knew who did good, but you also knew who did bad. And you knew for sure if anybody se in zero. If anybody went down in zero. That was the phrase. Like, you went down in zero if you didn't get baptized. In the month I served, my whole mission never went down to zero. So I had. At least now, I never baptized anything as a senior companion. I think the most I ever baptized was maybe six, maybe eight in a month. But I never. I never had a month in my mission where I didn't have a baptism.

Carah Burrell [00:41:58] So I have two questions that come to mind. One is, it sounds like you're saying that people were already. Sometimes, you know, there's different pockets of the world, whether it's influenced by, I don't know, different economic hardships or whatever it may be that draws people to religion and that, you know, whatever church kind of gets there first will be the ones you mentioned, like the Pentecostal Church. Yeah, they were big evangelical churches down there and that. It's kind of like, who knocks on the door first? Is that kind of a fair way to say it? Yeah, because they would have converted regardless to a religion maybe that people in that area. How would you describe what people were looking for and why you were so popular?

Mark Phillips [00:42:41] I think definitely at that time, the Catholic Church was failing a lot of people in those. And people realized that, like, this was. This was not giving me anything, like, I can go to Mass and, you know, and it just wasn't exciting. It wasn't, you know, and that's what

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:56] I think at the time, Mass was still in Latin.

Mark Phillips [00:43:00] I think it may have changed already, but it wasn't that long before that it had been still in Latin. And so, yeah, there was a big disconnect. It seemed like, you know, people were kind of Catholic by tradition, but very few of them knew much about the specific doctrines or anything like that. So when you talk to people. Yeah, yeah, they were willing to go with whatever you said in a lot of ways. So, yeah, so people were for very. You know, I took it at the

Carah Burrell [00:43:26] time

Mark Phillips [00:43:28] very much because this is what was preached by my Honduran mission president. So Solomon Yar was from Honduras, was. You know, these are Lamanites, and they're ready for the gospel. They're ready to bloom. You know, they recognize the Book of Mormon when they hear it. And that was. I saw a lot of things that, to me, seemed to confirm that, like, my whole mission, I maybe had two discussions with people where they tried to push back against the Book of Mormon. Like everyone else I taught my entire mission. Maybe they never didn't follow through with their commitments enough to get baptized, but they would accept the Book of Mormon.

Mark Phillips [00:44:02] We would just hold it up like it was fact and like, hey, here's the Book of Mormon. It's the history of when Jesus came to Honduras. We literally would say that. Wow. We would literally say that because we thought, you know, Copan, Honduras, is a beautiful. These beautiful, detailed ruins. And we thought, well, that could have been a good place anywhere. But I got that from my mission president. He said that in the Zone conference. He said, this is my favorite door approach. I have a book to tell you about when Jesus came to Honduras. Right. So that.

Carah Burrell [00:44:26] Who doesn't want to hear about that? Like, sign me up. So that's. You said very many, very few people pushed back against that part of that or did Book of Mormon against the Book of Mormon.

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:36] I was.

Mark Phillips [00:44:36] I mean, I was this well dressed, you know, exotic foreigner coming into their home with, you know, a dirt floor, and I Was telling them, hey, I have this book and I'm gonna give you one for free. And you maybe have two books in the whole house. Probably have a Bible and maybe something else or maybe some school books probably.

Mark Phillips [00:44:58] I'm gonna give you this book and this is what it says. And I think very few people had reason or at least if they did, they didn't tell us that they questioned it. They seemed to be very accepting of it to me.

Mark Phillips [00:45:13] And so, yeah, so it was. And then we had the hard sell sales approaches. Right. So my mission president was, I don't know exactly what he had read. I know some of the stuff we used, I later learned had come from a book that's called the Greatest Salesman in the World.

Mark Phillips [00:45:28] And it's like this sales book from like the, maybe in the 50s or 60s or something, but it has these mantras in it and things like that. Like, but so our, we were told again that by the second discussion we had to invite everyone to be baptized again. If you didn't do, if you felt like this person isn't ready or something like that, that was your lack of faith.

Mark Phillips [00:45:49] And so we had a script that we would give and at the end of the second discussion, we would look a person in the eye with pure faith in God and in my mission president's commandment, which I was supposed to be obedient to, and we would say, you know, hermano, we would say, me and my companion are preparing your baptism for July 25th. How do you feel to know that you will enter the waters of baptism on July 25 and follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized for the remission of your sins? That was our invitation to baptism. And so if you know anything about like, that's a very hard sell approach. It's like you're telling them you're doing this, so they now have to contradict you if they're going to say no.

Carah Burrell [00:46:29] And you is this like exotic American?

Mark Phillips [00:46:32] Right, Right.

Carah Burrell [00:46:33] What do you, what part of being an American, being in a nice white shirt, being in a house that has dirt floors. What part of that do you think influence people's wanting to listen to your message. And then also usually missionaries are also like, you know, handsome, young, good looking dudes that are charismatic. You have a community. You can go join like all of that together. What do you think? How do you think that influenced it?

Mark Phillips [00:46:55] Yeah, looking at it now, I see it very differently than at the, at the time. At the time, you know, again, it's kind of the unjustif the Means. So it's like, this is all good. We're bringing them good stuff. So if there's a little undue influence, I'm not gonna even worry about that. But, yeah, later. It was really later on that I started when I was really. I don't wanna move forward, but when I was in graduate school, but that I started realizing about, you know, power and imbalances of power and influence. That. Yeah, now I look back at that and, I mean, I think even the dress was grossly inappropriate.

Mark Phillips [00:47:27] I mean, to be walking around in these white shirts and ties. In Honduras, we were the only people in these small towns doing that. The mayor of the town wasn't wearing a white shirt and tie. The doctors in the town, the lawyers in the town, they were wearing more traditional. You know, they had these formal shirts. I can't remember what you call them. They're like. They're like. They don't tuck in and a lot of times have little pleats down the floor.

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:48] In Mexico, we call them guayaberas.

Mark Phillips [00:47:50] Guayabera.

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:51] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [00:47:51] So, yeah, that was like the formal dress, you know, and it's fit perfectly to Honduras because it's really hot there, you know, and it's open and they're airy. But we're walking around sweating in these shirts and ties. But we looked like people with authority. And I learned that very early on in my mission. Like, we could walk into a hospital, we could walk in anywhere, and people would just. We could go wherever we wanted. We could walk into government buildings. Like, we just looked official, you know.

Baptism Pressure, Retention Problems, and Undue Influence

Mark Phillips [00:48:15] So, yeah, so we did. I do feel. I feel like looking back now, that we had a lot of undue influence and that people were being baptized because they were kind of wowed by us. And that was reflected even during my mission. I started seeing that people weren't staying in the church very long at all. I mean, I would stay in an area. A lot of my areas I was fortunate to stay for four to six months. So by the end of six months, I was seeing, like, we were trying to reactivate our baptisms from the first month. By six months in, they weren't coming to church anymore.

Mark Phillips [00:48:46] And that mattered to me. You know, as a missionary, I did take time to try to go back and visit those people. But I can tell at once very really stark, maybe story of that is in the town Guaymaca, where we, me and Elder Dubon baptized those 42 people, he, in the previous campaign, had opened that area and had opened that branch brand new to the church.

Mark Phillips [00:49:10] While I was there with him, we baptized 42 people one month. I think the next month we baptized like 13 or 16 or something like that. Over the time I was there, we had. And it slowed down after. He was very charismatic, Elder Demone was. And after.

Mark Phillips [00:49:26] By the time that I left, we had baptized 80 or 90 people into that branch. Okay. But we were already down to attendance of like 20 or 30 on Sundays. A year later, I learned that that area and branch were totally closed. So I knew I had personally been a part of, you know, 80 or 90 baptisms there. And a year later, they had so few people coming to the church. Coming to church, they'd actually bought land in that town to build a church on. We were meeting in a rented building. I don't know what they ever did with that land or if later on something happened with it.

Mark Phillips [00:50:01] But the mission president decided it wasn't worth having missionaries there anymore. And I remember at the time, I wanted to go talk to my mission president, like, send me back there. I know where these people live. I can at least go visit them. But it never happened.

Carah Burrell [00:50:14] And I know a lot of missions, especially in Central and South America, will have, yeah, high baptism rates, baseball baptisms, and then next to no retention of people staying and building the ward, building the. The church in that area. It sounds like that's what you experienced. Do you think that they. They were, you know, kind of like nefarious baptisms going on or people weren't really taught, didn't have any kind of informed consent?

Mark Phillips [00:50:40] Yeah, I never saw that in my mission. I saw definite undue influence. I saw my companion, Elder Debon, going out when we baptized those 42 people. There were two big families, was the core of that. But that still only added up to, like, 18 of them. What the rest of the baptisms were is the neighboring kids of those two families. Because these families, one family had, like six kids and the other had seven kids, and the kids had friends. And so again, these exotic missionaries would come in their white shirts and ties, and we would, you know, the kids that were in the neighborhood, we were like, hey, you all come over here, too.

Mark Phillips [00:51:11] And so I remember during that month, not only baptizing these two big families, but going around individually now, I guess at least there was consent to the parents of these kids that had just been listening in on the discussions. And he had a great pitch to their parents about how if you.

Mark Phillips [00:51:28] Something. What's the analogy in the scripture, something with a tree. If you start a tree, you know, often good soil, it'll grow uprightly or something like that. I can't remember what it is. But he would give this scripture and he would talk about how, you know, they were going to get baptized, and he would sell it. So we did. Everybody I knew that was baptized was taught, and there was consent from the parents. So nothing like nefarious like that. But half of those 42 baptisms were kids who were anywhere from 8 to 13, 14 years old that were being baptized alone without their families, you know, so, like, what chance do you have of retention in those cases?

Mark Phillips [00:52:05] And another branch that I served in for a long time, for over six months in a town called Talonga. I know on the rolls in that town, there were. I found out from the branch, but there were 700 people on the rolls, and we had about 40 people come to church every Sunday.

Mark Phillips [00:52:22] And I found that out from a frustrated Latino Honduran branch president who, when I was. We were gonna bring this guy on a Wednesday night to baptize him, and he'd never been to church. He just got mad at us, and he was like, what are you guys doing? Like, we're here trying. We have. Look at this list of people. I have 700 people on this name. And you guys just keep baptizing people. And this guy's never been to church. What are you doing baptizing a gu. Been to church? And we're like, well, it's good. Like, you know, it's gonna. Maybe he'll come to church afterwards because he'll have the Holy Ghost.

Mark Phillips [00:52:50] And, you know, and. And, you know, he agreed to be baptized, so we need to baptize him, you know. So at that point, my view, you know, was very much that I felt like there was a right way and there was a worse way to do it. But in the end, I still really felt like the unjustified, the means. Like, if they want to get baptized or if I can convince them to get baptized, then it's all for the good.

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:15] Yeah, there's a lot of very pushy sales techniques that at least I used as a missionary, and I know other missionaries used. Like, when you invite someone to get baptized, you don't tell them, like, are you ready to make this lifelong commitment to the church and pay your tithing and blah, blah, blah, blah, and get baptized. Literally, the phrase that you're given by the church that you're supposed to say is, like, are you willing to follow the example of Jesus Christ and get baptized like he did?

Mark Phillips [00:53:44] And.

Gerardo Sumano [00:53:45] And so, like, you know, like, who's gonna Say no. And if they said no, then you're like, oh, so you don't believe in Jesus? Or like, oh, you don't. You don't love Jesus, you know, and I use that a lot, and I'm sure probably you or your companions did. So most of the time, people just feel pressured to say, yes, do it, and then they never go back.

Mark Phillips [00:54:07] Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. Is that type of pressure and then adding all that, what I see is now undue influence of who that pressure is coming from. This isn't their friend next door telling them. It's this person that's shown up in a white shirt and tie and looks all fancy. And not to mention, I mean, not to mention the teenage girls. I mean, I'm sorry, we could baptize. We actually, our mission president did try to put the reins on baptizing teenage girls without their families because we could baptize teenage girls all day long. I mean, you know, is there like

Carah Burrell [00:54:40] a boy band walking down the street?

Mark Phillips [00:54:41] Right, right. I mean, but I mean, seriously though, you know, obviously, I mean, you can see the draw to that is this. Is this American, and maybe if we get to be good friends, you know, he'll take me back to the US and, you know, and my life would change, you know, people would be willing to do a lot for that chance, for sure. And it's very understandable, you know?

Carah Burrell [00:54:59] Yeah. It just. It makes me think of the broader reasons that Mormon stories exist, is to give informed consent to people, whether they've been raised in the church or our new converts are just helping people understand what it means to be a high demand fundamentalist church, what it means to give your life and your tithing and, you know, to go through the temple to say that you commit your time, talents, and resources to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to wear the church's underwear, to pay your tithing, to serve and do all of the things to receive eternal salvation and exaltation. As a Mormon, there's no way, shape, or form that I know of is that communicated to new converts?

Carah Burrell [00:55:38] It's in the simplest terms possible. Yeah, I'm down with Jesus. Jesus is God. Usually to a lot of people already. You start off with a good Christian foundation and you build upon that in an unfortunate way sometimes just to, you know, bolster maybe a mission president's ego that he can print off a huge photo of how great his missionaries are doing. Because this mission has the spirit, you know, and so that just really speaks to, like, the broader problems in the church. And I'm sure, like, I would too. I would want people to have as much truth and knowledge. And if you think that you have it as a missionary, you, you're like, that's fine.

Carah Burrell [00:56:14] You'll just, you'll get baptized and you'll realize later how much this will bless you. We'll give you the Holy Ghost now. So I know it's with really good intentions for a lot of people doing it. I don't think that they're doing it for, for bad reasons, but it can have a lot of other negative, damaging influences. So I'm curious, as you were serving your mission, in what ways did your testimony grow in respect to the gospel, the institution? In what ways did it diminish?

Questioning Priesthood Authority and the Book of Mormon

Mark Phillips [00:56:39] Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, both of those things in different ways, definitely. So I learned that I needed to not accept priesthood authority blindly on my mission. That was an important lesson for me that served me well through the rest of my life in the church. I've respected and admired my mission president and I knew I should do everything I could to be obedient to him. But I learned sometimes he asked things that were literally impossible and I had to become okay with okay, sometimes when he gives these rules that are impossible, I can't do those. And that's.

Carah Burrell [00:57:16] Can I ask one quick question while you mentioned that? Because that's what's so interesting. Because the gospel, everything's possible with Jesus. There's phrases like that as a young missionary, did you go in thinking that like if he speaks for God, it is possible and then you just have real world experience and you realize, okay, this isn't realistic. Like how do you have any other examples of how you had to kind of take back ownership of what is actual, real, actually realistic as a missionary to do? This man isn't in touch with reality.

Mark Phillips [00:57:45] Yeah, yeah. He would make these massive rule changes from time to time. Like something would happen that wouldn't go well. So he would just, he would completely change, like simple things like what time you ate. Like he was very concerned with our schedule and so we shouldn't have, we never should eat at 5, 6, 7 o' clock because that's prime proseling time. So through, through part of my mission we would eat late at night and then all of a sudden he decided it would be good, we should keep processing into the night. So we had to eat lunch or we had to eat dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon and be out proselyting.

Mark Phillips [00:58:20] And so we would eat dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon. And we ate at somebody's house or something, or someone we would pay to cook for us because we didn't have kitchens or refrigerators in our little apartments at all. Never had a refrigerator in an apartment on my mission. So we would eat at 4:30 in the afternoon and we would be walking all night until 9:30, 10 o' clock at night when we would come home. And I literally, I lost like 30 pounds during that time. I got down to like 130 pounds.

Mark Phillips [00:58:46] I'd gone on my mission at about 155 and I saw a stake president that I'd known from earlier in my mission who was a CES employee. So I saw him at another stake and he. And I was like, oh, Presidente so and so I can't remember his name anymore. Like, hey, how are you doing? And he's like, hey, Elder Phillips. And we knew each other really well. And he's like, have you been sick? Like, are you okay? Because I was like £130 because I had been eating because we had no food at our house. Like we would eat at 4:30 and maybe we could stop by a little tienda or something and get, you know, something if we wanted to.

Mark Phillips [00:59:15] But we did not get much money for that. So. Yeah, so that, that was one example of just these extreme rule changes that he would do. And there's this. They were sometimes so small, but they would be so nitpicky that like you just couldn't do it sometimes.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:36] I want to highlight that still happened. Like that was not my experience on my mission. It depends a lot on mission presidents. My mission president was really concerned about us, our well being, you know. But my sister who was serving during COVID pandemic, she would have to cook herself, you know, like her meals. And she would only get one hour to like prepare, have everything ready, cook and eat and clean. And like it was not enough time. So most of the time they were just eating, you know, like really unhealthy foods because that's the only thing they had time for. So that like I just wanted to bring up that that's still happening today. This unhealthy behaviors that are encouraged by mission presidents.

Mark Phillips [01:00:28] Yeah, no, and that's, you know, and again, I know he meant well with that and he had good ideas. But like another time, here's an example of a rule we couldn't follow. He decided all of a sudden that splits, you know, team up, splits, whatever you want to call them, were great things. It would double his missionary power. So he Made a rule that if you tell a discussion in the evening that every night of the week you had to go on splits with people from the priesthood. Okay, so you know, these were small branches, we only had five or six people. We're trying to recruit these people every night.

Mark Phillips [01:00:57] And his rules, you couldn't teach a discussion without this. So I'd have appointments for discussions and we couldn't get two people to go on splits with us. So now what am I choice? I'm either going to follow my mission president and spend all evening trying to find. And so we ended up with like going out with Aaronic priesthood all the time. So I ended up, you know, spent teaching a lot of lessons with 12 and 13 year old Honduran kids. You know, it was better if they were a priest, but they didn't have to be anybody. Aaronic priesthood could go with us, 13, 14 year olds.

Mark Phillips [01:01:22] That's what we would get. These guys that would go out with us and we would split. But sometimes you're faced with okay, do I teach this lesson that I have an appointment with or do I spend my time going and trying to find someone to go on splits with me? Because that's what the mission president said we have to do. And sometimes I was like, okay, we're just going to go do the appointment, sorry, you know, and that was one of the examples. But then what happened, these massive changes. After two or three months of that, guess what happened? All sorts of missionaries started having girlfriends because they were spending all their evenings with 12 and 13 year old boys instead of their companions and they were going out, hanging out at girls houses.

Mark Phillips [01:01:52] And I had a companion that he got called out by somebody because he'd gone to a party and was dancing, which that was a really bad thing for a missionary to be dancing with girls at a party. But the kid that he had been on splits with told his dad who was the elders quorum president. I went with Elder Orellana, that was his name.

Mark Phillips [01:02:10] I can't imagine Elder Oriana still is part of the church, but he was really wild and he was from El Salvador and, and so I don't think he'll see this, but I went out with him and he went to a party with these girls and he was dancing and so, and it became a big deal and we got called in the mission president's office and, and, and, and other things. Like I found out throughout the mission other missionaries were ending up with girlfriends. And so then the mission president did a total 180. And the rule was no, no splits anymore. Okay. Well, before that, my whole mission, like we would go out one or two nights a week with like the elders quorum president, the branch president or something and do like a moderate amount of splits and.

Mark Phillips [01:02:48] But it went from every single night better be splits to all of a sudden, no, you can't do team ups anymore. You can't do exchange. Well, we would call them splits back then, but intercom videos, I think all them. Right.

Carah Burrell [01:02:59] And all of that must have like influenced your testimony about the leadership.

Zelle Phillips [01:03:04] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:03:05] Like, who. Who God is calling to be over you when you're like, this person isn't. Is a flip flopper on every different thing.

Mark Phillips [01:03:13] Right.

Carah Burrell [01:03:13] Is it really having any guidance here?

Zelle Phillips [01:03:15] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [01:03:16] And it was a split thing because I really saying all this, I just want. I really did admire him in a lot of ways and I think he was a great man in many ways. But yeah, it made me say, you can't. One of the things my mission president said once, that stuck with me my whole life, that served me well. One time in a conference, he said, we need more information on this topic. He said, the church works on 90% information and 10% inspiration. And I was like, whoa, wait, that totally changes things. I thought it was like all inspiration, but that made so much more sense.

Zelle Phillips [01:03:45] So.

Mark Phillips [01:03:45] Yeah, but it allowed me to question things. It allowed me, when the leader said something, to be like, I need to run that through my own brain and my own mind and my own filters. And I can't just accept that blindly. So that was, I think you originally asked the things that strengthened or weakened. That was something that caused questions. Another thing that caused questions is. And I can remember that even though I was, you know, I was super strong in the church, I was totally committed to, I'm reading the Book of Mormon and I'm taking this thing solely seriously and literally. And I'm like, how does Nephi know all this stuff about Jesus?

Mark Phillips [01:04:19] Like, this is 600 years. I mean, I have a historical brain. So I'm thinking this is 600 years before Christ and he's writing about Jesus and Jesus mom and Jesus dad and where he's gonna be born. Like, I'm like, okay, I got the Old Testament over here. Nobody is this specific in the Old Testament. How come the Old Testament prophets didn't know all this stuff about Jesus? And like, in my brain somewhere, it just occurred to me, like, it seems like Nephi has read the New Testament before. Like, that's really bizarre because it wasn't written yet, you know, and that Just that was, you know, didn't seriously shake my testimony, but it made me question and reading about the lost 116 pages too.

Mark Phillips [01:04:55] You know, that's a story I'd heard from childhood. But again, I'm reading it and I'm like, seeing it in the Book of Mormon, I'm like, really, like, this is like, really specific. Like as if somebody was trying to like, cover up or make an excuse for something, you know, when you read like, you know, I mean, like in the Book of Mormon where it kind of vaguely references like, why. I don't know why, but for some reason I've kind of rewritten this whole section again for. It must be for some good purpose in the future. And it was because 116 pages had been lost and it all worked out.

Mark Phillips [01:05:24] I'm like, wow, this is really, really oddly specific, you know, and so those things, like, just. Just tweaked my brain a little bit, I guess. I have, you know, that was kind of on the shelf a little bit, but strengthening was, you know, I did come into my mission with a really. I felt like, strong relationship with God.

Mark Phillips [01:05:41] And in my mission, I read Talmadge's Jesus the Christ twice, both times in English. I didn't try to read in Spanish, but. And I loved it. I mean, I absolutely loved Jesus the Christ. And I thought Talmage was a genius. I still think Tallmadge was a genius.

Mark Phillips [01:06:00] And just the way he explained things and the way he talked about the New Testament, it was the best Sunday school class I'd ever had on the New Testament. Because in the church, you know, we focus on the Book of Mormon and church history and things like that so much. I found. I. And it was really handy for interacting with these people in Honduras who the only thing scripture they knew was the New Testament. Because my knowledge of the New Testament wasn't very good. And I got a lot of that basis from reading Jesus the Christ from Talmage. And I really became converted to Jesus.

Mark Phillips [01:06:26] And I started realizing that in. Previously in my life, I had not esteemed. I felt like Jesus enough. And I felt like sometimes in the church at that time, growing up in the 80s, we put too much of an. We had put too much of an emphasis on church history and things like that, and not enough on just learning about Jesus, this person that's supposed to be at the center of our religion. So. So that was, you know, my. My, I guess, you know, kind of positive conversion experience on. On. On my mission.

Becoming a Psychologist and Early Career Path

Carah Burrell [01:06:52] And you mentioned in your outline that becoming a trainer, right on Your mission influenced you to be more interested in becoming. In doing what you do today.

Mark Phillips [01:07:04] Yeah, yeah. No, that's true.

Carah Burrell [01:07:05] I don't mean to jump forward that far, but I would just love for you to make any connections about why being a trainer and being Study in. Interested in studying psychology, how those two connected, and then kind of like your pathway from the mission into attending Baylor and into studying psychology and all of those things. I'm just kind of interested how that jump went. I've never heard anything quite like that.

Mark Phillips [01:07:29] Yeah, so it was. It was both between the people I taught and my companions. So with my companions starting off so the first missionary, after I'd been out for six months, I was transferred from the small town I was to my only area I had that was in the city in Tegucigalpa. And I was given this young missionary who was. He'd been in the mission for like, one month, and he'd been really wild with his first companion. This is the one I referred to earlier from El Salvador. And this kid, my gosh, I mean, I give him credit for anything good he was doing in life.

Mark Phillips [01:08:03] This kid, I talked, you know, we talked and learned that he had grown up in poverty that, you know, I couldn't imagine in El Salvador during the wars that were going on there in the 80s. His mother was a fruit vendor in the market, which in most cases in Latin American countries, if you're a fruit vendor in the market, that's put you put fairly low down on the ses. He. And so we would.

Mark Phillips [01:08:28] Sorry, I can sometimes get emotional when I talk about my companions because I really loved him. He would talk about when we would go through the market sometimes and we would get a drink and we would sip most of our drink and he would get down to like 30% left, and he would hand it off to one of the little market kids that were running around asking for coins. And he looked at me, he said, I used to be one of these kids. I would go around and beg food from people.

Mark Phillips [01:08:51] And he'd gotten baptized and he had lived with missionaries for a while, and then he'd come out on his mission. But he was in no way prepared for the rules and the structure of a mission. This kid had very little formal education. I don't know how much school he'd ever attended, but it was very little. He struggled to read. He could read, but he struggled to read just the discussions and things like that.

Mark Phillips [01:09:12] He was very outgoing and very high energy. And his first companion just couldn't handle him. And so somehow he just. He got sent to me and I guess the mission president, he caused problems. He caused problems in the ward where we were. He caused problems with the family that we lived with, who happened to be friends of the mission president. They actually called my mission president once and said, like, you have to transfer this elder. We can't take him anymore. And the mission president kind of talked the family down some. And so they ended up feeling like, for whatever reason, that I was doing a good job at working with him.

Mark Phillips [01:09:40] And we stayed companions for four months, which is a long time to have a single companion in a mission. And so from that experience, I guess my mission president got the idea that I could handle or be a good influence on difficult missionaries. And so the next missionary he sent me was also from El Salvador.

Mark Phillips [01:09:59] And. He had gone through terrible experiences in his life. He had an abusive father. And he would talk to me about that. His father had once he was somewhat effeminate, and he was accused his whole life of being gay, which in El Salvador, you know, in 19, late 80s, early 90s, was a pretty bad thing to be accused of. I mean, pretty tough thing. I don't know. To this day, he never talked about his sexuality with me. I don't know if he was gay or not. But he told me the story that his father had once gambled his sexuality in a poker game and that a guy came to collect it from him.

Mark Phillips [01:10:47] Like. Like the guy, like, he did, his dad was playing a poker game and didn't have enough money. And he knew. I guess he knew this other guy was interested in men. And he was like, you know, okay, I'll put in in the pot, like, you can have sex with my son.

Mark Phillips [01:10:59] And so this guy, like, comes to collect from. From my companion. He told this story, and because he'd been disowned by his family when he joined the church, and this was during that time period. And this guy is like, you know, your dad basically gambled your ass in this poster poker game, and I'm here to collect.

Mark Phillips [01:11:19] And he told this story that for him was really inspirational, that he had learned from the missionaries about the story of Nephi and Laban. And that in his mind, that just came to his mind, and he started kind of walking away from the guy. And as the guy came close enough to touch him, this is my recollection of his story, he just. He turned around and swung with all his might and hit the guy right in the face. And then just ran and got out of there and was able to save Himself.

Mark Phillips [01:11:45] So anyways, I mean, you know that. So I'm a freaking 19 year old, you know, listen to these stories from these guys, you know, I've grown up in the, in the suburbs, you know, and these, you know, my one companion was baking for food as a kid.

Mark Phillips [01:11:58] And anyways, and so as you can see, you know, it touched me and I thought, and all I knew how to do is listen to him, but for whatever reason that seemed to help him. So I would just listen to him. And especially with that second missionary, we would sit up till 2 or 3 in the morning sometimes breaking the mission rules, you know, because we were supposed to be in bed at 10:30, lights out, go to sleep unless you're out teaching, you could stay up later.

Mark Phillips [01:12:26] And he would talk to me till 2 or 3 in the morning, just telling me about his life and just what he'd been through. And so that combined with some experiences with members where it was a similar thing. I would notice my companions like giving them marital advice and all this stupid stuff. And I would just think like, dude, you're 19 and have never even, you don't need to be given married branch presidents, marital advice, which I had one campaign that was doing. And so as I went, that's what I learned. I could listen to people and that that was helpful. And in my mind, what I thought when I went back and started getting into psychology is I thought, well, maybe I could learn like more in a way that I could help them more than just listening.

Mark Phillips [01:13:07] I could learn some skills or ways of helping them better. So that did drive me towards wanting to get into mental health and into counseling and therapy as a career.

Carah Burrell [01:13:19] So, yeah, that's really interesting. I think at the root of it, a lot of missionaries, they, they want the person they're teaching just to feel loved, to feel seen, to feel heard, whether that's by them or by their maker, you know. And so I think that's a really beautiful testament to what I, what I do love about missionaries is sometimes if they're not so concerned with numbers and they're just concerned with listening, whether it's to your companion or to somebody who's going through a hard time, you're not concerned about getting them in the waters of baptism, but just seeing them as a person.

Carah Burrell [01:13:50] So I think that's, yeah, a really kind of beautiful part of your story. So thanks for sharing that. I then I'm just curious how things progressed after admission and how you eventually, what was your, your first kind of job after you like, went through your Program. Was it at the psychiatric hospital?

Mark Phillips [01:14:11] Yeah, that you.

Carah Burrell [01:14:12] Okay. And I'm just curious, like, what exactly led you to choose something? Because that sounds very, very intense.

Mark Phillips [01:14:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so. So, yeah, so I came off my mission and I did my undergraduate at University of Alabama, Birmingham, Got bachelor's in psychology. I kind of meandered through that. I would take different jobs and get promoted to be a manager or something and take a semester off. But I graduated finally when I was with my bachelor's when I was 27 and applied to grad school. I mean, through that meantime, I had gotten married to my wife. And actually in that meantime, Zelle was born.

Carah Burrell [01:14:46] Yay, Zelle. You get to. You get a talk. Welcome to the story.

Mark Phillips [01:14:50] Hi.

Carah Burrell [01:14:50] Sat quietly for like an hour. Okay, Zelle, you came into the world. How was it you were born where

Zelle Phillips [01:14:57] again, I almost said Texas. I was born in Alabama, Birmingham.

Carah Burrell [01:15:01] Okay, so you, Zelle enters the picture.

Zelle Phillips [01:15:03] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:15:04] Welcome to the. Welcome to the Mormon story now, though. Okay. And during that time, Del was born. Okay.

Mark Phillips [01:15:09] So, yeah. When she was 2, we moved to Texas to start grad school. So. And I. And you know, again, we get to spiritual experiences. Like, I felt like it was a really. At one point I had a real spiritual experience where I thought and prayed about what I wanted to do and ended up changing my major to psychology and deciding that I was going to go to grad school and try to get a doctorate. And so as I finished up school, I looked around and I looked at different. I looked at BYU's psychology program. I looked at a lot of different programs, and I thought Baylor's was a really good fit for me because of some of the things about it.

Mark Phillips [01:15:42] And I ended up only applying to one grad school program, which is like a totally insane thing to do. And I think that year they got like 160 or something applications. And there were 11 people in my class that were.

Carah Burrell [01:15:52] You said, we're going to take the Mormon guy.

Mark Phillips [01:15:53] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:15:54] For whatever reason, for people who don't know, what is Baylor mostly known for?

Mark Phillips [01:15:57] So Baylor is the biggest Baptist university in the world. It's in Waco, Texas, the main campus. And it is very much, I think, a lot of our LDS audience, it's very much the Baptist. Byu, especially on the undergraduate side, the graduate side is a little bit more secular. And of my 11 in my cohort of grad school, I think one or two were actually Baptist.

Mark Phillips [01:16:21] So the program I was in was not overwhelmed by the Baptistness of the university by any degree. Very few of My professors were Baptists, and they made that clear when we went to interview. They're like, we're feminists, we're liberal. They're like, trying to tell these grad students that it was okay to come to this Baptist university.

Mark Phillips [01:16:40] So, so, yeah, so I went to school at Baylor, and it was, it was an amazing experience. I started studying, you know, psychology. Well, I'd studied in undergrad, but. But started pursuing my graduate studies in psychology. And I was surrounded by these 11 people or 10 other people besides myself in my class. And they were, they were the smartest group of people I had ever interacted with. Like, everybody was just so smart. And I just felt lucky to be there amongst these people.

Mark Phillips [01:17:09] So I get, I think, you know, getting into church stuff, you know, I was still, I was, you know, we were fully gung ho as far as church went. I was called a scoutmaster, which I loved. That to me, was always the best calling in the church. Got to go camping on a regular basis, out with, with the kids and do a lot of fun stuff.

Mark Phillips [01:17:28] But yeah, while I was there, I think there were some things that started to be a little bit concerning to me sometimes as I was doing my graduate studies. And one of them was, you know, all these promises that we had in the church, including like, the word of wisdom, like, you know, and all the, that, you know, if you keep the word of wisdom, you're going to be smarter and stronger and better and all this stuff. And, you know, none of these people, we went, we had, we had little class parties and people drank beer and wine. I mean, these were grad students. We weren't like, people weren't getting drunk and ugly or anything, but, but they were, you know, they were drinking beer and wine on a regular basis.

Mark Phillips [01:18:05] Several of them smoked cigarettes, and they were still super smart. And some of them were a lot smarter than me. And I'm trying to keep up with these people, generally speaking. And, and they, they, they cursed like sailors. I, I did not cuss much in my life until graduate school, but my whole life I was told that cursing is a sign of a lack of intelligence. You know, it's because you don't have a big enough vocabulary. And here I'm with the smartest people I've ever met, and they all curse like sailors. And so that, that influenced me. I'm like, these just these little things, like these, these just fundamental, understood things that we accept in the church.

Mark Phillips [01:18:43] I'm like, these things aren't, aren't accurate. Like, these people have, these people are awesome people and have. I mean, not that their lives were perfect, but they were as good as anybody else's life and they were doing great things and they weren't keeping all these standards, you know, oh, gosh. You know, Craig lived with his girlfriend. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I mean, I'd grown up outside Utah, so that wasn't. That wasn't really oh, my gosh to me. But, you know, he's still super smart guy, you know, and. And was doing super well in life, despite the fact that he wasn't doing all these things that are supposed to bring all these blessings, you know, they're still getting the blessings anyway, it seemed

Carah Burrell [01:19:17] like to me, yeah, I definitely relate to that. I think a lot of people, whether in the church or outside the church, relate to that. That no matter how many people that are not Mormon that you meet throughout your life, you still. When you see them being blessed or being intelligent, you're still like, wait, but I thought that the spirit will be removed from me if I do that. Maybe it's better that people don't even get into the church because it looks like if they were to break their covenants or something, you know, then there. That spirit would be removed from them. Like, I thought that we're the most blessed and chosen people. And it kind of like brain Fs with you that people are still so blessed and so intelligent. And it's kind of like a culture shock within America, like Mormon versus non Mormon.

Mark Phillips [01:19:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's. Yeah. So little things like that started popping up in my brain. And the other thing. Yeah, they were super kind and super good people, you know, for sure. They were. They were. They were. And they. And they were just like me. They wanted to devote their lives to helping people, you know, and so. And I took, you know, my first interpersonal psychology class, and that's when I started learning about power differentials. Because as a therapist, you need to learn to be aware of power differentials. You know, that somebody comes into your office, there's automatically a little bit of a power imbalance.

Mark Phillips [01:20:26] And you need to be aware of that. You need to be. And because you recognize that you're given that little bit of extra power, you need to make sure that you're super ethical in how you treat people and how you influence them. And I start reflecting back on my mission. That's when I started realizing, oh, my gosh, like, we were influencing these people totally unethically, in my view.

Mark Phillips [01:20:43] And I saw. And those were some themes that came up that I would talk about for the next 15, 20 years as a branch president and bishopric member and things like that, that, you know, hey, elders, you guys need, you know, you need to be careful on how you're influencing these people. I would, I would try to teach that to people in the church, but. Yeah, and somewhere in there I can, I guess I think a lot in the shower, but I can remember being in the shower one day and just it occurring to me.

Mark Phillips [01:21:13] It's possible the church isn't true. Like just that possibility for the first time in my life, and I was probably 27, 28 years old. Like, it occurred to me that for whatever reason, I don't remember exactly what's going on my head at that time. It occurred to me that, like, it could be possible the church wasn't true. And that had never seriously entered my mind as a realistic possibility before that.

Carah Burrell [01:21:34] Yeah, and what were your. These would have been like, your classmates, the other people going through your grad program with you that you're mentioning. What were their views of you being Mormon? Were they religious, non religious and kind of what, how. What were their opinion? Were you bullied? Were you teased?

Zelle Phillips [01:21:54] Kind of.

Carah Burrell [01:21:54] What was your experience with that?

Mark Phillips [01:21:55] Yeah, no, first of all, I mean, everybody was super nice to me, definitely, and to you. Nina, I mean, you know, she would go with me, my wife Yannina, to parties and things like that that we would have and their gatherings and stuff, you know, and they were super nice and super respectful, generally speaking, but they were smart people and a few of them would ask me questions once in a while about things and I would answer them. I felt like I had good answers. But yeah, of the people, there are a couple of them that belong to some type of.

Mark Phillips [01:22:26] More like evangelical type church. But the majority of them, like, one was actually Greek Orthodox. She was a Greek girl from Canada, actually, and she was Greek Orthodox. And I went to church with her once. I had a time when a couple of my classmates asked to come to church with me and they came to church and they just like left after sacrament meeting and didn't want to come to Sunday school. I was like, oh, I wonder what went wrong? Like, why didn't they want to stay? I don't know what exactly they thought, but. So I would have discussions, but I think they were, again, they were caring people and I think they would try to every once in a while kind of probe my beliefs a little bit.

Mark Phillips [01:23:02] Like, you know, like, what do you think about this? And, and it. What became really obvious Were. Were start. And the only time I think I was kind of confronted overtly was in a. In a class once, and we were talking about LGBTQ issues.

Mark Phillips [01:23:19] And. And so one of the other. One. One. One guy, that Todd, who's completely secular, I would assume an atheist, but had no religious affiliation. And I knew that. And he said to me, we were talking about it, and he said, well, do you feel comfortable, like, doing therapy with gay people if you think that it's a sin? And I was like, well, I mean, it kind of challenged me. And I was like, well, do you? And my reply, because I was so smooth and so awesome, was like, do you feel we're at a Baptist university? Do you feel comfortable doing therapy with Christians when you're an atheist?

Mark Phillips [01:23:56] And you think what they. So I was like. So I was always on the train of like. But it started to bother me, I guess I always. From the time I knew I knew gay people, I tried to be accepting of them, I mean. Which started working in restaurants as a teenager.

Mark Phillips [01:24:18] And so by the time that Zelle was born, me and Janina were working at a bakery, and our manager was lesbian and lived with her, her girlfriend, and they lived right around the corner for us. And she would give my wife, like, rides to work in the morning sometimes because we only had one car. And I remember we had a conversation once. This was early in our marriage, and we said, well, if Mel and Juan got decided, this was before gay marriage, you know, marriage equality, before it was legal. But if they decide to get married to have a commitment ceremony or something, like, you know, people would do, like.

Mark Phillips [01:24:50] And they invited us. Would we go to it, and we talked about it for, like, five minutes. And we're like, yeah, we would, because they're our friends, and we would support our friends. So, like, my. So that was in, like, 1999 or 2000. Like, my mind that early was like, I'm in favor. I don't think that the government has the right to discriminate as far as marriage went. And I didn't care what the church's teachings was. I thought the church can have its own beliefs. But I was.

Mark Phillips [01:25:16] You know, So I tried to be. So again, when it came to that question, I was like, you know, I have friends who are gay, you know, and I'm nice to gay people. But, yeah, my church does have that. That view.

Navigating Same-Sex Marriage and Church Leadership Roles

Mark Phillips [01:25:27] And I don't know if at that time I would have even said I disagreed with it fully. I definitely disagreed. Once marriage equality stuff came up, I was open about that, and I was a branch president at the time when Prop 8 came up. But at that early time, it made me think about it more and it was embarrassing to me a little bit, you know, with that group of peers, like to be. Have to be questioned. But I did, you know, I did trust the church and I trusted that if changes would happen, it would happen at the right time.

Mark Phillips [01:25:54] And so I remember one of my other friends during that conversation, he said, well, do you think the church will change its stance? And I said, well, I don't know if it'll ever change its stance. And then I think he was trying to, like, defend me and come to my rescue. But if they did change it, you would be in favor, right? I'm like, well, yeah, of course. You know, I think he was trying to, like, reach out and like, rescue me from that awkward situation a little bit where I was being, you know, just bigoted, you know, and being.

Mark Phillips [01:26:18] And, and everybody else in the room could see it and, and, and, and, you know, so, so that, yeah, that, that, that was something that I started thinking about more after that.

Carah Burrell [01:26:29] And you mentioned during Prop 8, you were a branch president, and if I remember correctly, there was a time where every ward stake president had to read something from the pulpit that was from the first president, first presidency. And I had a little lisp there, sorry, listeners, about how the church was going to support this proposition in California to make sure that marriage day between a man and woman. Do you remember having to read that?

Mark Phillips [01:26:59] I remember being aware of it and I remember talking to my stake president and I said, if that comes to me, I can't read that. And it didn't come to us in Kentucky. So that was, I think I was very aware when that came out. I don't know how or why exactly, but.

Mark Phillips [01:27:18] I think that was more in the west and in California, but it did not come to us in Kentucky to be read. But I remember being conflicted about that and talking to my stake president about it and saying, I don't think that I could read that if that comes across.

Mark Phillips [01:27:33] And at the time, my view was kind of nuanced that I said, well, I. Politically, my view of good government is the government should not be choosing sides in marriage and it shouldn't be prohibiting. And something I said, excuse me, many times to many members of the church is my great grandfather, my great great great grandfather, Abraham Hunsaker was persecuted by the US Government because of the way that he practiced marriage. And I said many times, as an active and member of the church, in leadership. To me, it's completely hypocritical for us as a church to try to tell other people how they should get married.

Mark Phillips [01:28:07] So at that time, I was kind of like, okay, I'm okay if the church has a doctrine against it and the church wants to practice that. But I was not okay with them trying to influence the government about that and trying to limit other people's rights.

Mark Phillips [01:28:18] My own kind of libertarianish political views were saying, you know, like, people should be free to do what they want to do. We shouldn't be getting involved with this. And government really probably shouldn't be involved in marriage at all. But if it is, then it needs to treat everybody on an equal playing field.

Mark Phillips [01:28:34] And so that was influenced by my own views of government, but also by my personal interactions with. With our friends, you know, and. And having made that decision earlier, that, yeah, if I had gay friends that got married and they invited me, I'd definitely go because I'd support them because they're my friends, you know.

Carah Burrell [01:28:49] Yeah, I think you said that really well about where the government gets involved. And I think that was a huge shelf breaker for a lot of Mormons during that time, that they now had to defend it, not just in a religious view, but that the. Their church was now getting involved in taking as a state's own rights to decide what they wanted for their. For the members of that state. So, yeah, I think that's really interesting that as a Mormon, that you had such good, you know, nuanced views and progressive views about, you know, gay marriage at the time. And we'll get into why that comes to be important later. But it said in your outline, I don't want to miss this. That said that there's an apostate fundamentalist group in your branch.

Mark Phillips [01:29:34] Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. So I get to Kentucky, and we ended up living there six years, and I served almost five as branch president. So the first year I was called as, like, the word mission or branch mission leader or something. And we're. And our stake center was 2 1/2 hours away. We were in this rural part of Kentucky called Hazard, Kentucky, in southeastern Kentucky. Had a little bitty branch there.

Mark Phillips [01:29:56] And so we would have to travel to Huntington, West Virginia, for leadership meetings. So one of my first few months I was there, we would, of course, carpool. So I'm riding with the branch president and I think the elders quorum president and the ward clerk, these three guys in a car in an SUV up to. For Two and a half hours up to a leadership meeting for state conference, and they start talking.

Mark Phillips [01:30:20] And I very quickly realized, like, these guys are off the plan. Like, these guys, they were talking about patriarchal order of the priesthood and they were talking about, you know, polygamy. They were also quite. They thought that the idea of giving people of African descent the priesthood had been wrong. And they basically, I mean, and this is the branch present at the time, the elders quorum president and the ward clerk, these three guys, and they're like this trifecta. And they had their own study groups. And I later learned from other members, like, what do you think about these guys having this study group?

Mark Phillips [01:30:57] And I was like, well, I didn't know about that. But you know, I think anybody wants to have a study group, that's their right to have a study group, that's fine. But I learned, as time went on, I learned that they were practicing temple ceremonies in their homes. They were doing prayer circles in their homes.

Mark Phillips [01:31:13] They had a special way of doing blessings. And they somehow interpreted one of the signs of the priesthood from the temple as a way to hold your hands when you're giving a blessing and that by doing that it would make the blessing have more power.

Carah Burrell [01:31:25] And.

Mark Phillips [01:31:26] And the three of them weren't exactly the same place. One of them was a little bit more further away than the others. The branch president was kind of the most like still trying to keep it between the lines, but he, they, they were clearly, you know, and so that was my first inclination to that. So. But through the next few years, when that branch president left, he moved away but still lived in the region. So he was. Still had influence in the area.

Mark Phillips [01:31:55] That ward clerk, he received a revelation that he was supposed to be the next branch president. Well, he wasn't called as the next branch person, actually, another man in the ward was. And he only served like four months with me as his first counselor and then I was made the branch president. But he stopped coming to church for a year over that because he was convinced that he had received revelation that he was supposed to be the branch president and he was going to lead. Oh, they were obsessed with the second anointing too. So they were obsessed with. They needed to do all this stuff so they can get their calling election made sure and have their second anointing.

Mark Phillips [01:32:22] So yeah, so that was so. And in a small branch that was a big influence. These were, these are big guys in the branch and they would try to like work this stuff in to their like talks and sacrament meeting and stuff. Like that. And we actually, while I was branch president, we had the stake presidency, had to come down and kind of warn them and set them straight a little bit and ready for the good part when I left.

Mark Phillips [01:32:44] The one who had been the elders quorum president at the time, he was called as branch president. Two branch. One guy was in between us for a little while and then. And then Gary was called as the branch president.

Mark Phillips [01:32:56] And a year or so in they found out that he was practicing polygamy. And it was this huge scandal. And you know, of course it was really hard on the members of the branch. They're in this little branch in Hazard, Kentucky and of course everybody accuses them of being polygamists because they're Mormons. And then it comes out in the papers and everything that this guy. Yeah, it hit the local papers because

Carah Burrell [01:33:18] there was a family Mormon polygamists.

Mark Phillips [01:33:20] Yeah. And he had met this, this much younger girl online in like Ireland, if I'm remembering right. And she had come over and people thought that she was just like living in their house. She was like in her 20s and he was close to 60 and. And he had a wife, a really nice lady. And. And it turned out that, you know, they had been married for like a year. They went to someplace in western Kentucky where there was a little. Little enclave of a break off polygamist group. And they had gotten sealed and everything like that and. And they were full on practicing polygamy right there in Hazard, Kentucky.

Carah Burrell [01:33:55] Full on practicing polygamy while also having one foot pretending to be kind of full practicing was.

Mark Phillips [01:34:01] Was serving as branch president.

Carah Burrell [01:34:02] Wowship and everything.

Mark Phillips [01:34:04] Yeah. And that was a year or two after we were gone and I got some messages and a couple of phone calls from some of our branch members at that time. Having been, you know, the branch president myself and still had friendships there. You know, just talking about how hard that was on the branch there and on the members and how they were trying to tell people, you know, the church is true, but the leaders are imperfect and all this stuff like that. But yeah, that was so. That was so that. So that. But that experience caused me to question my own beliefs because what I knew about these three men is as Mormons, they were more devout than I was.

Mark Phillips [01:34:39] I mean, I was trying to do everything right. I was trying to keep. But these guys were studying their scriptures more than I was. These guys were going to the temple more than I was. These guys were more devout, and yet the spirit was telling them all this off, what to me was off the wall stuff. As a mainstream Mormon, in reality, they

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:54] were just following Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.

Carah Burrell [01:34:56] Sure.

Zelle Phillips [01:34:57] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [01:34:58] And that's what they were. They were people that believed that Wilford Woodruff had gone off, you know, had gotten off the plan when. In 1891. Right. Or was it Wilford Woodruff in 1891? Yeah, that's what they thought. They thought the church has been in kind of partial apostasy ever since 1891.

Mark Phillips [01:35:13] And so, yeah, they wanted to go back to Brigham and Joseph and. Yeah. And, and they had gotten a bunch of stuff online. They tried to give me some of that. Sometimes I looked up a little bit. I even gave it to the stake president once. And, and, and like I said, they, they had. The state presidency would come down and try to kind of keep them in line a little bit. They were kind of aware of them.

Mark Phillips [01:35:30] But yeah, so that was that. That did cause me more thoughts like, how could the Spirit be leading them to that when that's not what the brethren are saying. And, and the Spirit is only supposed to lead us to things that the brethren are saying. Right. And that's how I knew I was still good, because I was still following the brethren.

Carah Burrell [01:35:47] Right. And no matter how much the church kind of wants to get away, that no Mormonism, that's the flds that practice polygamy. We are the mainstream LDS Church. You're always kind of going to have different little sex pop up who think that they're living the real true higher law, the real order, that they're more in touch with the Spirit. And I can see why that would, you know, force you to question. So that's really, that's interesting.

Zelle Phillips [01:36:12] Yeah.

Working as a Clinical Psychologist with LDS Family Services

Carah Burrell [01:36:13] My next question is just generally you getting into clinical psychology work, would you mind just kind of like taking our listeners through what is it like being somebody who comes from a Mormon background in not just the clinical psychology space and helping people through different psychological issues, but I always came from the background that we're all here to be tied and tested and that a lot of our psychological issues that we're having, it's because we're not faithful enough. And so I'm just curious, could you just walk us through how your faith progressed in line with your career doing clinical and counseling psychology, whether it was working in the psychiatric hospital or with veterans and then eventually into LDS Family Services.

Mark Phillips [01:37:00] Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So I, I, you know, even in grad school and then coming out, I would run into people in the church, like leaders in the church, like Stake presidency counselors, that would sometimes make a little snide comment about psychology to me, like, oh, you know what Brigham Young thought about psychology? I'm like, no. And he never told me. I still don't know what Brigham Young thought about. So I don't know if Brigham Young ever said anything about psychology, but he said that to me once, like. Like what? I don't know. No. So I've heard some things that other people have said more recently, back in the 70s and 80s about mental health that was sometimes critical.

Mark Phillips [01:37:31] I can't remember exact quotes, but yeah, I grew up with. My mother was a guidance counselor. My mother was an elementary school guidance counselor. So I grew up with a positive view of counseling and therapy, despite what some people have negative. Well, I've learned many people within the church have a very fearful view of therapy and counseling. And, and so I didn't understand that for a long time and I didn't really get it fully because it was important, you know, it was, it was fine in my family.

Carah Burrell [01:38:04] And I just want to also drive down this hope with this note, with like a personal example. My family is very anti psychology. So my mom has said to me when I'm trying to help her, like, talk to my daughters who are having tantrums. I've literally said, like, you need to see that she's just having an emotional reaction and she's not thinking logically and just like, let her go through this tantrum. Don't try to talk her out of it. And I'm trying to teach my mom, my very TBM mom, child psychology. She goes, I only believe in psychology up to a certain point, but I also believe in angels and demons and we need to cast the demons out.

Mark Phillips [01:38:37] Oh my.

Carah Burrell [01:38:38] So she's more there, you know, the, the Mormonism, they were going back earlier, like, there's no problem that can't be solved through the spirit, through a priesthood blessing, through prayer. And that psychology works up to a certain point, but we have the superior knowledge, which is the gospel.

Mark Phillips [01:38:53] Right.

Carah Burrell [01:38:54] So that's kind of, that's why I'm so interested in what you have to say about Mormonism relating to the psychology field. So that's my background at least. And I'm wondering if viewers have similar kind of Mormon backgrounds at. Well, but so continue.

Mark Phillips [01:39:06] Yeah, so. So, yeah, definitely.

Carah Burrell [01:39:08] And your mom was pretty forward thinking on psychological issues that kind of helped foster a good understanding of people's mental health as you went into that field.

Mark Phillips [01:39:17] Yeah, yeah, I think so. And yeah, I mean, my mother is, is very much what I would classify as a natural counselor. Like it's just in her personality. And then she got the schooling to go behind it. And in fact, when I've viewed some Mormon stories podcasts and I see, when I see John and Margi, Margi strikes me that way. Like she's just like a natural counselor. Like she's just, you know, and I don't even know what her. I know I'm sure she's had some training, but she just exudes it, you know, and that's how my mother was, is. And so my whole life, my mother, besides being an elementary school counselor, has been like the de facto Relief society counselor.

Mark Phillips [01:39:58] Like women in the ward, women from three wards ago, 20 years ago, still call her and, and you know, they don't call them counseling sessions, but they call her to talk, you know, and she's been that way. So, yeah, so that was a good influence in that way that it was always okay for me. But yeah, as I got into it.

Mark Phillips [01:40:18] So a few things. So my first serious job was in a psychiatric hospital in Hazard, Kentucky. And so even though I'd had all this training and a doctorate in psychology, it really exposed me full on to serious mental illness and a lot of delusional disorders and things like that. And all of a sudden I realized people can believe anything. And do you know, I've met people who, I've met people who believe they were Jesus. I've met people who believe that their grandson was Jesus. I've met people who. And this sounds like I'm making this. I've met people, a man who thought he was the king of France once.

Mark Phillips [01:40:57] I mean literally, and all sorts of other things in between. But so as I, for myself, as I would see these things and then I would start to see them in much, much milder levels in non. And people that don't suffer from major mental illness, that people can lead themselves with beliefs to believe all sorts of things. We can see that in political realms, we can see that in multi level marketing experiences and things like that, where people can get just into something and just believe something that to anybody in the outside would just seem ridiculous, but it can just, it can be reality to them.

Mark Phillips [01:41:35] And so I started having this theory, like everybody has their own reality. Like I said, like everybody experiences reality differently might be a better way to say it, But I started thinking about that a lot and so that would start, I guess, you know, just influencing my own thoughts about the church and religion. And again, those guys that were apostate, okay, well, maybe some of these things they can believe these Things, it's almost like little delusions. And then I started thinking, well, but if that is, then what about what I believe?

Mark Phillips [01:42:08] So I guess that's more of my own thoughts about it. But as far as practicing, I mean, again, I always looked at therapy as a positive thing. So it was just more just encountering people in the church that were kind of scared of it and thinking that was strange. So when I came to Alabama after six years in the psychiatric, six years working in the psychiatric hospital, and I came with a job at the va, but because my parents are pretty well known in the stake and know a lot of people, there was somebody from LDS Family Services in Atlanta who found out I was a psychologist and I was Mormon and I was moving to Alabama and he was interested in me doing some work for them because they didn't have anybody in Alabama.

Mark Phillips [01:42:58] You know, there's, there's like, you know, I don't know, five or six stakes in Alabama and they have nobody in Alabama to do counseling and therapy. So they reached out to me and I, and I talked to them and ended up setting up, just doing one day a week as a part time employee of LDS Family Services. And that lasted somewhere between two and three years.

Carah Burrell [01:43:19] And would you quickly, just for people who don't know, discuss what LDS Family Services is slash was and like what the church's intentions were with it?

Mark Phillips [01:43:29] Yeah, wow. Yeah, that and I, I. So the way I see LDS Family Services right now, the way it operates is generally, you know, like a counseling center for, for church members. However, in its history along, a lot of it was devoted to adoption work.

Mark Phillips [01:43:45] And so historically LDS Family Services did a lot of work with adoption with people who wanted to place children into temple recommend holding families, basically. So whether they were young Mormon girls who got pregnant or something like that, or whether they were somebody that somehow just on an adoption page found LDS Family Services who wasn't a member of the church and just said, I'm going to go with this agency. So by the time I came on, they were actually winding down their adoption services and kind of shifting more towards counseling services for members of the church, which I certainly viewed as a good thing. And what year was that would have been 2011, 2012. Around that time, yeah. So.

Carah Burrell [01:44:29] And was that partially? Yeah, because was it had to do with gay marriage and it was becoming a discriminatory issue?

Mark Phillips [01:44:36] That's my understanding definitely is that the church got out of that business because they did have some foresight in this situation and they said okay. With LGBTQ issues becoming More front and center. And with LGBTQ rights becoming more commonplace, I guess, I mean, just more accepted within US Society and US Law, they started getting worried that they were not going to be able to practice as an adoption agency that only allowed temple recommending Mormons to adopt because they would not allow an LGBT couple. You know, they wouldn't provide them services.

Mark Phillips [01:45:20] And I think they foresaw that down the road they're going to end up in lawsuits over this and they just wanted to get out of it before they did. So in that case, they kind of abandoned ship on that whole thing and got out of the adoption business because they didn't want to. To encounter, you know, a situation where they were being sued for equal access and things like that by. By lgbtq.

Carah Burrell [01:45:45] And if I remember correctly, I've is LDS Family Services kind of famous for putting undue influence and pressuring young women into giving up their babies to place them into temple. Recommend holding LDS families.

Mark Phillips [01:46:02] I think so. Combined with bishops and parents. Yes. That, you know, this is going to ruin your life, but obviously you can't get an abortion.

Carah Burrell [01:46:09] So there's a service right here. Yeah, there's a wonderful family that'll take your baby and they're going to be in no position to be able to raise this, right?

Mark Phillips [01:46:18] Yes, absolutely.

Carah Burrell [01:46:19] Adoption is a really, like, tender issue that's close to my heart. And people being pressured into making decisions one way or another is already hard enough. When you have. Have like your baby could potentially not go to heaven if you don't give it up. Is really painful sore spot for me that I wish the church would never have done that, or I'm sure they could still continue to do that. But having an LDS Family Services, it's at least my recollection that that was kind of their bread and butter of getting young people to give up the baby. Saying that, like, the baby cannot only have eternal salvation if they're in this family, not yours. That kind of. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but do you have anything to say to the way that they ran the organization?

Mark Phillips [01:46:58] Just that I've heard those kinds of things. I didn't see that myself. I too, adoption is really important to me and my family too. But so we have, you know, we have, you know, we have one nephew within our immediate, you know, extended family that was adopted through LDS Family Services before they stopped that. And then that same sister and her husband have adopted three more children since through other, you know, not through LDS Family Services because they didn't, you Know, weren't doing that anymore.

Mark Phillips [01:47:27] So. And also in my extended family on my mom's side, who's the oldest of eight kids, we have, I'll count up in my brain five or six. I have five or six cousins who were adopted, I believe most of them through LDS Family Services.

Mark Phillips [01:47:43] So. Yeah. So it's something that's close to my heart and our family's heart. And I think adoption is a beautiful thing. But you're absolutely right. You know, people, people, I mean, it's such a difficult thing. I can say this. I can say that my, my mother, as a calling for a while, served in, as a. Because she's a therapist, she would be assigned to, to help girls. And the ones that I know that she worked with were not LDs.

Mark Phillips [01:48:07] And in the two or three cases I'm familiar with that she did, the girls decided against adoption, decide to keep their babies. So whatever. I like to think whatever my mother was doing was advocating for these girls in the way that they were at least able to make the decision that they felt was best. And again, not that adoption is a bad decision by any means. I know she talked about a couple cases where that happened. But I have an awesome nephew who came through LDS Family Services and they have had an open adoption with, with his birth mother and, and who lives in a different state.

Mark Phillips [01:48:48] But, but it's been great. You know, it's been, it's been, it's amazing to me. So. But I think I've heard that there was some of that history.

Carah Burrell [01:48:55] Yeah. When, when religion gets involved and Eternal Salvation gets involved and Eternal Families gets involved. Yeah, that can get things really complicated and pulls at my heartstrings more than probably just about anything else right now.

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:09] If you can, briefly, can you tell us a little bit about your experience counseling members of the church for LDS Family Service?

Mark Phillips [01:49:15] So luckily, I think for the Good, by the mid-2010, 2011, when I was coming on board in 2011, 2012, the church was trying to tell bishops, hey, it's okay to send people for counseling. And I got that as a branch president in Kentucky. And I was, of course, already a psychologist, but we, I remember having a meeting with the bishops and branch presidents at the Stake center where they brought in a counselor from LDS Family Services to tell about what they had and what their services.

Mark Phillips [01:49:45] The only problem is it was completely inadequate. I mean, you know, the amount of services were completely inadequate for those areas. When you get out, away from the west, you know, again, we had there was like two or three. Well, maybe two Counselors in Atlanta, and they were serving basically, you know, much of the Southeast, you know, and they were having to come over. They definitely served all of Georgia and all of Alabama.

Carah Burrell [01:50:04] Because. Are you saying there's, like, a stigma if you go to see a therapist that's not lds, that people will only want somebody through LDS Family services?

Mark Phillips [01:50:11] So that is something I have absolutely seen within the church, again, that I struggle to understand. But. And I think I have some understanding of why, though. But, yeah, so I got references, referrals all the time from bishops. And I would like. Either I would just have too many cases or I'd say, you know, that's not. Couples therapy is not something I really specialize in. So I think you should probably just refer them to the community. And I started helping the bishops to refer people to the community, but both the bishops and the members were a lot of times resistant to that because, in my understanding, it was because of a belief that if you're a Mormon and you go into a secular counselor and you say, I'm depressed, that they're going to say that's because of that crazy religion you're in, you need to get out of it. Right.

Gerardo Sumano [01:50:58] I think the handbook of instructions, at what point during those years still said that the church recommendation was for members to go to family services? I don't think it was explained. It's like, this is probably the best option and only the only one you should consider.

Mark Phillips [01:51:21] Yeah. And I think. Yeah, I don't know at what point that changed. I think it was changing because I know the folks that I, you know, like the lead counselor in Atlanta, who I was working with, they were trying. We were trying, like, we need to get more referrals. But what they did, they kind of wanted to develop relationships with, like, therapists and counselors and a psychiatrist in the area, if possible, that they could, like, trust. Like, that would be okay, you know, but my just. My view as a therapist is, you know, anybody who's received their mental health, you know, therapy or counseling or psychological training in anything in the last recent decades, you're trained so much to try to understand and respect the culture and beliefs of the people that you're counseling, that to me, that was really an unfounded fear.

Mark Phillips [01:52:10] Not that it couldn't happen that you would have a therapist that would try to influence somebody to leave the church, but I think that the likelihood of that happening was much, much smaller than the fear that people had around that. Definitely, you know, I wouldn't. I would never. And if somebody is Baptist or Muslim or whatever. I'm going to look for ways of helping them interpret their beliefs in a way that's more healthy for them if there's a lot of guilt or shame or whatever like that. But I would never, you know, try to change somebody's belief. I would certainly not try to like, you know, even when I was, you know, and I would never try to convert them to my beliefs. That would be so extremely unethical as a therapist to do that.

Carah Burrell [01:52:53] Yeah, yeah. And what would you say, working with LDS members in that type of therapist role, what would you say was the most eye opening or something that you weren't expecting to hear that was the most common, that maybe shook your faith or maybe increased your faith? What was the most like, like eye opening takeaway from your time?

Mark Phillips [01:53:17] Yeah, no, my. Yeah, that, that the, the, you know, and you kind of are a generalist. I think with LDS Family Services, you saw a lot of different things. Saw kids that were having behavioral problems. I saw, you know, different thing. Men that were having substance abuse issues or, or even pornography issues. And that could be a whole nother topic. But the thing that stood out to me the most though was I kept being referred depressed and anxious LDS women. And that was an eye opener to me. The extent, to the number of sisters in the church who were feeling a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety and a lot of guilt that I felt like came from them placing too much confidence in their leaders, receiving revelation to tell them what to do, basically to their detriment.

Carah Burrell [01:54:18] Is that what you're saying?

Mark Phillips [01:54:18] Yes. I mean, I'm sure the leaders had the best of intentions, you know, and we're going by church guidelines or church policies, but. Yeah, but I saw people who felt, who would feel a lot of guilt when they'd be counseled to do something for, you know, they have a problem and the bishop would say, well, you should do this and they would do that, but the problem wouldn't improve. So then they would think, well, he was inspired, so it must be something I'm doing wrong. And they would blame it on themselves.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:46] I think people outside of Mormonism, it would be hard for them to understand because the role bishops play in the church is quite different from a Catholic priest or even a pastor. My, my dad was just called as a bishop and he, as he was talking to me just a few weeks ago about, you know, the types of stuff that he talks to people. I'm just shocked by how trivial and how, how like nothing related to the church but these members Come for him for counsel. Like, it can be legal. It can be just about, you know, their business.

Mark Phillips [01:55:25] And.

Gerardo Sumano [01:55:27] And so. So, like you're saying, when the bishop gives a council, the member follows it, and then it doesn't play out like they're thinking it will. They. They're not gonna doubt the bishop. They're not gonna doubt God. They doubt themselves. And. And it adds to their shame and their, you know, like, thinking that they're not enough or that they must not be faithful enough or they are doing something or God doesn't love them.

Mark Phillips [01:55:54] Yeah. And all three of those things were the things I would hear.

Gerardo Sumano [01:55:57] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [01:55:57] That they're not faithful enough, they're not getting the blessings, or that God doesn't love them. You know, when these promises aren't kept, you know, then. Yeah. Then either God doesn't love me or there's something wrong with me, you know. Yeah. And I kind of developed kind of a little theory of why I was seeing this in women more than men.

Mark Phillips [01:56:20] And I felt like it was because men, you've served in these leadership callings, you understand that you're doing the best you can. You know, I was a branch president. I tried to do the best I could. I prayed about stuff, and I tried to get, you know, I tried to feel the spirit and I tried to do the best. But in the end, you know, I knew that I had to make hard decisions. And sometimes, you know, it didn't. You know, sometimes I didn't know what to do, basically. Now, at least, I would like to think that as a branch president, I recognize that. And I tried really hard.

Mark Phillips [01:56:47] I never made a decision for somebody. I never tell you I would. You know, they need to figure those things out for themselves. And I would help them come to that conclusion. I would try. But. But, you know, most bishops aren't psychologists, you know, and they're not trained for that. And so people come. You know, again, it's. You can kind of get a gender role thing in there. It's kind of a typical man thing. If somebody comes with a question, your job is to provide an answer and a solution.

Carah Burrell [01:57:10] Like the fix it, man. Yeah.

Mark Phillips [01:57:11] Yeah. You gotta fix it. And so I think a lot of bishops fall into that trap, and I have sympathy for them. Like, I feel. I feel so sorry for anybody who's a bishop in the church. I really do.

Mark Phillips [01:57:24] It's too much to put on any person, and you don't have the background, you don't have the training for it, and it's an impossible job. So I Have sympathy, but at the same time, you need to have enough awareness to not be screwing up people's lives.

Mark Phillips [01:57:40] And so one example, that was a woman that I saw for several years. In fact, I extended my time at LDS Services, just kept a couple of patients that are a couple of clients that I felt like really needed my services and stayed on with them for an extra six or eight months or maybe close to a year because of that. But this one woman who had, she told me the story that when she was a young woman, she had been on a date with this guy and he had gotten aggressive with her sexually. And she just decided, you know, okay, I just, I'll just, you know, I don't want to make this guy mad and I don't want to do it.

Mark Phillips [01:58:21] And she went along with it and he date raped her and she felt guilty about this afterwards. So she went to her bishop and, you know, and so they were both LDs, and so the two of them were basically put into disciplinary action together.

Mark Phillips [01:58:33] And the, from my understanding of what I recall her saying is when they went to a disciplinary council or when she went to her disciplinary council with the Stake presidency, that she was told that what she should do is she should marry him because they had committed this sin, and that was the best way for her to repent of that. And that would bring that into this family bond and not spread that sin among other people.

Mark Phillips [01:59:02] And so she should marry him. So that's what she did. She married this guy and he was abusive, and she was in an abusive marriage with him for 12, 13 years until she was able to leave him. And so I was seeing her, started seeing her two or three years, I think, after she had left him.

Mark Phillips [01:59:23] And this has all been very traumatic for her and trying to understand why, you know, well, she had pretty much made up her mind that those guys were wrong, luckily in their counselor. But why, you know, kind of why still God would allow that to happen? You know, and she was very upset. And again, so she takes that she's not only upset with leaders, she's upset with God because of this, you know, and as an LDS Family Services counselor, you know, you kind of have a quandary. But still my reaction is like, no, no, God was not the one responsible for this. You know, in my view, these people, they were just wrong.

Mark Phillips [02:00:06] And that was something powerful that I felt like I gave to some women. Sorry, I'm looking at the camera now. If anybody mistake watches this, that they. But, you know, I would say, you know, they're just wrong. These leaders are wrong. They would tell me the story. I said, well, they were wrong. And I think that being another man who was a leader in the church and being able to say no, what you validate their experiences and what they, what they told you was wrong. And you know, that might have been

Witnessing Misconduct and Counseling Struggling Members

Carah Burrell [02:00:30] the only time that they've ever heard that from somebody who's also lds, still believes in the same type of church that they believe in, validating their experience and that they were wronged.

Mark Phillips [02:00:40] Yeah, they were wronged by the church. They were wronged by, by these people.

Carah Burrell [02:00:43] Really empowering for them.

Mark Phillips [02:00:44] I hope so, you know, I hope so. So, yeah. And in fact, one of the people that had wronged one of these women was a stake president who maybe just briefly mentioned was a man named, I'll say his name on here, loud and proud, Lanny Smart, who was our stake, who had been the bishop of our ward before we moved there, was then the stake president when we moved there.

Mark Phillips [02:01:05] I knew his wife since we were teenagers and he was a rising star in the LDS Church. He was a stake president at a young age and then he was called as a mission president down in Puerto Rico. And man, people in our stake, some of them were like, this guy, he's going to be an apostle someday. And about, I can't say the time, but maybe a year into their mission, we started hearing they were going to be coming home.

Mark Phillips [02:01:30] And I was told that it was because Sister Smart, and I won't say her name but was sick and that's why they had to come home, because she was having a flare up of some kind of autoimmune disease and that's why she came home. Well, over the next few months, it trickled out that Lanny Smart was being sexually involved with sister missionaries. That's why they ended their mission. It was not because his wife, it was because he had been, and I do not know the details I've heard that he. Well, I know that he was sexually inappropriate with sister missionaries. And one of those sister missionaries eventually finally told her stake president, like either, you know, her or companion, something, something that happened.

Mark Phillips [02:02:12] And this dude was brought home and he was excommunicated. And as far as I know, he's out of the church. But this was one of the stake presidents that had, had done some offensive things to this. This one of the women I was counseling. And when I found that out, you know, it was like hushed and it was whispered around the stake and like, you had to be in the know to know what had happened. And I didn't find it out through official challenge channels in case, in fact, my bishop lied to me and told me that it was because this person that I had known since she was a teenager, his wife was sick and she had to come home and they were really worried about her.

Mark Phillips [02:02:48] No, it's because. It was Because Lanny Smart was fucking sister missionaries. Okay. That's why it was that they came home. Don't blame it on his wife.

Gerardo Sumano [02:02:56] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [02:02:57] You know, don't say that. That's. And I went on some mission blogs because I was trying to figure out what had happened. I went to mission blogs and found some of his missionaries. That's what they were told. They were told that their mission president's wife was sick and that's why he's being sent home. They weren't told what happened. Hopefully the word got out throughout the missionaries what had happened. But, you know, and so I said, did you. Oh, you know, President Smart that had done those things that you're really upset about? Yeah, he's excommunicated now. You know, this is what he did. And, you know, and I. I would. I will forever tell that to anybody. I'm not. I'm not keeping that crap hush. But that's how it is in the stake. Like, oh, we shouldn't tell people. You know, it's real quiet.

Gerardo Sumano [02:03:35] It damages the good name of the church.

Mark Phillips [02:03:37] Yeah, you know, we want to damage the good name. No, I'll damage. You know, and he's a lawyer. Maybe he'll, like, come after me or something. That would suck. Like, peace, dude. No, but, yeah, it is not cool. That was in the papers. I mean, this. I'm not saying anything that was. This came out in papers. You can. I think some of it may have come out in the Salt Lake Tribune eventually. You can Google his name and it'll come up.

Carah Burrell [02:04:02] I'm really. I'm interested to circle back to the portion that you mentioned about a lot of LDS women feeling a lot of depression that you didn't see with men that would come to see you for therapy services. And I always grew up hearing that LDS women have, like, higher rates of depression or that, like, the state of Utah has more prescriptions for antidepressants than other places. And I always chalk that up too.

Gerardo Sumano [02:04:30] Well.

Carah Burrell [02:04:30] We don't have other coping mechanisms like alcohol and drugs.

Mark Phillips [02:04:34] Right, right.

Carah Burrell [02:04:34] You know, so is there any truth to that, that you think generally that there's been data studied that LDS women have higher rates of depression?

Mark Phillips [02:04:43] Yeah. You know, not. Not being from Utah or living here. You know, I've heard things like that too, but that's the best I could say. I don't know, it would just have to be like statistics. Yeah, right off board. But, but that was in my experience, you know, certainly there, there, there seemed to be a lot.

Carah Burrell [02:04:58] And Zelle, I want to bring you in on this one.

Zelle Phillips [02:05:01] Hello.

Carah Burrell [02:05:02] So I'm curious to know, how does it, how do you. Listening to your father talk about the experience that he had talking with women. We are the only two ladies in the room.

Zelle Phillips [02:05:16] Girls talk.

Carah Burrell [02:05:16] Now, what was your experience in the church in relation to depression? Did you feel like because you didn't have the priesthood, you didn't have power to speak up? Do you feel like that would have. In addition to what we will also get into with struggling with same sex attraction, if it's a struggle, I don't think it is. But Mormons, that one's for you. All of those things. What do you, what, what is it? How do you interpret kind of what your dad does for a living and did in relation to the church, especially when it relates to feminism and women's issues and depression? Do you have anything you want to add or say to that? I just feel like we got to get the girls in here, you know,

Zelle Phillips [02:05:56] of course, I will say, growing up, as you've probably heard from my dad, I definitely grew up learning that, you know, church leaders were not exactly not to be trusted, but always to take them with a grain of salt. So I definitely didn't have the experience of like blindly trusting church leaders. And I've never gone to the bishop for any issue because I was highly against that, which you can see kind of from my dad's perspective. But also I was actually friends with that stake president's daughter.

Zelle Phillips [02:06:29] So that has always been a big thing that I've even. I've brought this up at BYUI when people are like, oh, well, why don't you listen to the bishop when he tells you to do things? Because I have a nefarious relationship with my bishop back at BYU. They're like, well, why don't you? And I was like, well, this is the experience I've had with church leaders growing up. And they're like, oh. And I'm like, yeah. So I've learned not to trust them because they can be wrong. But I will say in relation to guilt, I feel like that is a big thing that, like growing up, like my mom and me and a lot of like my friends and laurels and all that stuff, we've all had a lot of immense guilt for just things that I feel like a lot of at just in my experience, like the young men, priests and stuff, they never seem to have the same kind of guilt we do.

Zelle Phillips [02:07:14] And I'm not 100 sure why that is. I feel like there is a lot of as kind of like my dad brought up like the self blame where it's always you're not good enough. Like you should have been better, you should have had more faith. It's something that you're doing wrong. It's always a looking in rather than looking out.

Carah Burrell [02:07:31] Yeah. And did you personally experience that as well, that you felt like you needed to measure up and do more in the church? But it sounds like you also had a healthy attitude, which I did too, where I'm like, yeah, they're leaders in the church, but do they really speak for God? No, they can be wrong. But were you pretty hard on yourself growing up?

Zelle Phillips [02:07:49] Oh, I was quite hard on myself growing up for again the very internalized reasons. I definitely actually still not to this day very sure why I was like this. I started very young at like when I got baptized. Took that very seriously about sin. And I remember multiple times thinking that I wish I could lock myself in a room so I could never do anything bad because I was very upset at the idea of especially at a younger age, hurting Jesus. That really stuck with me that I was causing other people pain by doing things because I always wanted things to be my problem. That only bothered me. I never wanted to bother other people. And the fact that like when I did something bad, then that added to Gethsemane really upset me at a young age and has always stuck with me

Carah Burrell [02:08:33] because I still remember, yeah, those Sunday school lessons of Jesus bleeding from every pore and then it was lit. I remember thinking, tell me if this sounds familiar where like every pore of his, that of blood that came through every. Every pore of his body, that could have been a sin that I created or like him being whipped or like a second of pain that he felt at the cross could have been a sin that I gave to Jesus Christ that I could have prevented if I was just better. How did you, how did you interpret that? Yes, that was crucifixion of Jesus.

Zelle Phillips [02:09:04] Pretty on point. Yeah. I always felt a lot of guilt for just. I know especially since he was always, you know, portrayed as perfect and he only wanted to like I honestly multiple times as a child brought to tears. But I thought that like this perfect person who only wanted to help People who, like, stood up for people who couldn't. He ate with the. He, like, did all this stuff because I really looked up to him for all those things and, like, just that he did all this and he was so perfect and he was willing to die for us, and I caused him pain when he had done nothing wrong and that. Just a lot of guilt, actually, towards that.

Carah Burrell [02:09:40] Oh, yeah, I definitely relate on that one. So, Mark, would you mind taking us up till you mentioned in your outline reading something about Joseph Smith's polygamy? So would you mind just kind of, like, bringing us up to the point where your two stories kind of converge together, where a lot of faith crisis and problems with the church and issues start coming to the forefront in your family. What was on your mind and what was, like, the dynamic of your household? And I know you mentioned earlier that you have. Was it an LGBTQ child? All that had come out. So take us through kind of how your faith progressed and then where you guys kind of come together, unraveling your faith, I guess.

Growing Historical Doubts and Quiet Faith Deconstruction

Mark Phillips [02:10:24] Yeah, so. So, yeah, but as of the, you know, 2010, 11, 12, you know, I was. I was definitely, you know, straight on. You know, I knew there were some little problems here and there. I had a lot of problem with some of the culture of the church. And so that was my big thing. Like. Like the culture of the church. We need to make changes to the culture of the church to bring it more in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mark Phillips [02:10:47] And so. But, you know, I was pretty full on, you know, certainly dedicated to the church, gave, you know, much, much time. I have my whole life. But, yeah, so I was. When I came to Alabama, I was called a Scoutmaster, which to me is the best calling in the church. I love the outdoors. I love hiking. I love Scouts. Well, I love the outdoors part of Scouts.

Mark Phillips [02:11:09] And I loved being able to go out and camping with the young men, you know, usually once a month, and taking and setting up a high adventure program where we would go on hikes and we would go on canoeing trips and things like that, which hadn't been happening in our ward previously, and doing Scout camp every summer with the boys and just seeing them learn to love the outdoors, and I loved all that. And so one year, I think, right. I think it was probably the second year I went to Scout camp with them boys.

Mark Phillips [02:11:40] I can remember walking in the tent area and I had cell phone coverage, and for some reason, something popped up on my phone, and I can't remember for sure if it was a Facebook post or some email, probably a Facebook post with a link. And it was about some history of Joseph Smith and plural marriage.

Mark Phillips [02:11:56] And I had not learned Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage until my mission. I did learn that on my mission, I thought before that, I thought I'd started with Brigham Young. I knew my ancestors had practiced. I had no problem with polygamy, but I had been kind of, over the years, had just heard little bits and pieces and like, maybe Joseph Smith didn't have sexual relationships with his plural wives. Like, it was just ceilings and stuff like that. And I kind of heard those kind of things a little bit here and there. So it hadn't concerned me a lot.

Mark Phillips [02:12:26] But I got this email or I saw this link and I clicked on it and I started reading a little bit and something kind of hit me like. Like this could tell you things like, you don't want to know a little bit. But I feel like one of my core values is I'm dedicated to the truth.

Mark Phillips [02:12:42] I have no reason to fear the truth. And that's kind of what I said to myself. I have no reason to fear the truth. So let's read this and see if it's true what it says. So I read this and I start reading some details about Joseph's polygamy.

Mark Phillips [02:12:53] And some of the things that really just stood out to me was just the stories from some of the young women and the things that he had said, what I now would view as manipulative things that he said to get them to become his plural wife and to have sex with him.

Mark Phillips [02:13:10] And him telling them that, first of all, the enormous power imbalance here, that we've got this man by this point in Nauvoo, when most of these happened, who is the prophet, he's got thousands of followers by now. He, at different times was the mayor of the town and the general and all these things. He. And he approaches this girl, right? Gosh, this guy's a celebrity and is like, you know what? First of all, obviously, you know, I speak for God. So he didn't have to say that. They knew that. And he says, you know, God told me that I'm supposed to marry other women other than my wife, and you're supposed to be my wife.

Mark Phillips [02:13:50] And some of them, he told, you know, in the pre existence, we were bound together for this to happen. And if they were resistant, which most people were initially, he would say that if you do this, your father and your mother and your whole household are going to be saved in the celestial kingdom automatically, just by doing this, so it's awesome. And then if they resisted more, at least a couple of them, we have record that he said, well, an angel has actually come and threatened to kill me if you don't marry me.

Mark Phillips [02:14:21] And just the immense amount of pressure that these young women were put under. And I read that and it just hit me that if this is true, this is not the work of God. I'm in this thing because I believe this is the work of God. That's the reason I'm in this church. If this is true, then Joseph Smith, the founder of this religion, was not about the work of God again. In the meantime, I had learned enough about predatory men in the world that I recognized these patterns and these behaviors and the kinds of things that he was doing. These are things that manipulative and abusive men have used in one form or another.

Mark Phillips [02:15:03] You know, threats that something bad's gonna happen to you or threats that something bad could happen to me if you tell all these things.

Carah Burrell [02:15:09] Yeah. And it's striking me right now why the church might not want people to be so interested in psychology, because with your psychological background, you can recognize these kinds of patterns of abuse and call them out for what they are so that you recognize them in church leaders.

Mark Phillips [02:15:24] Right? Yeah. So I'm looking at that and I'm just like, no, this isn't right. And, you know, I need to learn more about this. I need to find out more, make sure if this really is true, that this isn't just some anti Mormon source. But whatever it was, it seemed credible to me.

Mark Phillips [02:15:38] And so that sent me for the next few years on kind of searching out some of these things. And over that time, I read things like Rough Stone Rolling. And then eventually the church came out with Saints Volume 1. And I read through that and what I'm getting is validation of a lot of these things. Like, they would still be a little sugar coated. The stories would be in Saints or in Rough Stone Rolling. But I'm like, no, but these things happened in one way or another. Nobody's making this stuff up. And so that started to concern me. And somewhere in the next year or two again, I can remember thinking in the shower and thinking, I guess that was why I was still scoutmaster, thinking, you know what?

Mark Phillips [02:16:22] I don't know that. I don't know that I have serious doubts about the church being actually true. I don't know that it's true. And I remember thinking, I'm a scoutmaster. It's okay. I can be a scoutmaster and I can teach these Boys about the outdoors. And it's okay if I don't literally believe the church is true. I think it's still good for my family. And obviously, you know, my wife is devoted and we're sealed in the temple and it would, you know, I don't need to disturb her.

Mark Phillips [02:16:50] But I had to recognize within myself I had serious doubts about the church. Well, unfortunately, like a year later, I get called to the state president's office and I get extended a call by a counselor in the state presidency to serve in the bishopric. And that scared me a little bit because, you know, I had been a branch president around what year was it? I want to say that would have been maybe 2013, 2014.

Gerardo Sumano [02:17:17] Okay.

Mark Phillips [02:17:18] By that and by now. So it was a few years. I moved to Alabama in 2011. So it was a few years into that and I was called into the bishopric. And, and, and I found out, I asked, well, who's the bishop going to be? And he told me who the bishop was.

Mark Phillips [02:17:34] And it was a guy I really respected and admired. And I said, and I know he's a strong leader. And I said, I think I can support him. I think I can work with him. And I remember saying in the interview, I said, you know, I'm not a yes man. I said that to the counselor. I said, I will, you know, I will support the bishop's decision, but I'm going to give him my opinion on things. And I'm going to sometimes, you know, say things that, you know, disagree with him on things. And I just, you know, wanted to let you know that. And I said that to the bishop when we first were called into a bishopric.

Mark Phillips [02:18:09] The other thing, beards, a whole other little topic in lds. But I had a goatee at the time. I had a beard through graduate school. I mean, this is another thing. Like why the freak does the church care about men's facial hair?

Carah Burrell [02:18:23] Why?

Mark Phillips [02:18:24] Why? I mean, it's bad enough, obviously, it's probably much worse that we care about whether women wear bikinis and whether their shoulders are showing and whether their midriff is showing and all these things like that. But on the guy's side, you know, it's like, why do you care about my facial hair? And that's something I said. Many like facial, like, men's grooming is not a principle of the gospel. Sorry. But I had had a beard through graduate school, and when I was called as branch president, I shaved it myself because I thought some people think that a branch should be clean shaven. The stake president didn't ask me to.

Mark Phillips [02:18:53] So I don't want it to be a stumbling block to people. People's faith. That's what I said at the time. Fast forward. Now I have this goatee. And the Stake Presidency member, as he's calling me to be the counselor and the bishopric says, and about the. And he goes like that. And I said, do not. Do not say anything to me about the beard. I said, I will shave my beard, I will shave my goatee, because I'm going to choose to do it, but I do not want you to ask me to do it. And he starts saying, well, you know, President Johnson says that those who preside.

Mark Phillips [02:19:22] And I looked straight at the picture of Jesus that was in very deliberately and obviously that was hanging on the wall of bearded Jesus. And I said, please do not try to give me. And you can ask my wife. I said this. I said, please do not try to give me a doctrinal explanation about facial hair. I will only think less of you. And I don't know what poor President Ferguson thought about that exactly, but, you know, he kind of okay. And kind of stepped back from that. And so we did. So I did. I shaved myself my goatee, and I served in the bishopric for five full years.

Mark Phillips [02:19:56] And the minute I got out of the bishopric, I started growing my beard. And I said, I will never shave my beard again. Certainly not for the church at that point. But during the time I was in the bishopric, I tried my best. I mean, I would go to meetings and I would say, you know, I'm giving it my all. I know I had to admit to myself, I knew this might not be true, but I still thought maybe it still could be true. And I'm going to try my best. I'm going to focus on that side.

Mark Phillips [02:20:21] But about four years in, the church had released some more other than rough stone rolling. Almost everything I read about the church that caused me concerns, apart from that initial posting about polygamy, everything I researched was through gospel library and the Joseph Smith papers. The Gospel library links to the Joseph Smith papers.

Mark Phillips [02:20:45] And I really do. I love history. I minored in history in college as a bachelor. And I love. If you really love history, you eventually get to reading primary sources. And so somewhere in there, the church put out this first 50 years of the Relief Society and all these minutes from Relief Society meetings. And so I go back and I'm up at night reading the minutes from Nauvoo Relief Society meetings, and I'm reading and just learning amazing stuff and getting such a better Picture, I felt like, of what was going on in Nauvoo.

Mark Phillips [02:21:15] And, you know, it starts off with, you know, the story that we're told all the time about the organization of the Relief Society, when the women are getting together and want to do something, you know, and Joseph Smith shows up, right, and is like, I'm going to organize you into something better. You guys remember that quote? Yeah, there's something like that. And I'm like, how condescending was that? Like, these women already have this, you know, are starting this organization. And he's like, I'm going to organize you into something better. It's going to be after the order of the priesthood and the ancient ways and all this stuff.

Mark Phillips [02:21:39] Like there's ancient, ancient Relief Society. Come on. But anyways, so during that time, I started reading these primary sources more. And finally, finally, maybe year four into the bishopric, I finally realized, no, I can't believe this is true. And so that last year was kind of hard for me because maybe I don't remember a year, six months, but that last little bit in the bishopric. And we knew where our time was coming up on five years and we were going to be released, and we were. But that's what I did when I got released from as the bishop or as the. Excuse me, the first counselor in the bishopric after five years, I immediately grew out my beard, and I really thought it was going to ward off callings.

Mark Phillips [02:22:18] I thought if I grow my beard and if they call me into something and tell me I have to shave my beard, I'm saying, I'm not shaving my beard. Sorry. But about two months later, I get called into the stake President's office again and they extend the call of to be Elders Quorum president.

Mark Phillips [02:22:30] And this was like two months before COVID hit in 2019, so. And about that time is when my daughter Zelle, all of a sudden, out of the blue decides she wants to serve a mission. Right. And should we jump? Yeah, that's our wonder.

Carah Burrell [02:22:48] Yeah. So because it sounds like you're saying you are had a kind of quiet faith deconstruction, losing your testimony at around the time that your daughter's all of a sudden jumping to go serve a mission.

Mark Phillips [02:23:00] Right.

Carah Burrell [02:23:01] While you're not being too vocal with no. Your concerns quite yet.

Mark Phillips [02:23:04] I wasn't being vocal. I. I think people around me could notice I was more critical of the church. I'd always been somewhat critical of different things, but I. That I was becoming more. More critical about certain things. My wife, I think later on said she Noticed that. But yeah, yeah. And I thought, you know, a mission can be a great experience. I thought in many ways my mission for me was a great experience. And so Zelle said that, you know, of course we were going to support her if that's what she wanted to do.

Carah Burrell [02:23:32] And so remind me again around, you said 2019. Was this 2019 or 2020? Covid hit.

Mark Phillips [02:23:37] Oh, you're right, 2020. I'm sorry.

Carah Burrell [02:23:39] Okay.

Mark Phillips [02:23:39] So we were released at the end of 2019. And then it was. It was. Yeah, it was probably January, late January or February of 2020 that I was called as Elders Quorum president.

Zelle's Story: Growing Up Queer in the Church

Gerardo Sumano [02:23:51] So Zelle has told us a little bit about her story or like, her journey growing up in the church, how she saw leadership in the church. But maybe you want to tell us a little bit about also you starting to experience in the church. It's called same sex attraction. And how were you dealing with that? At what age did you start noticing that if you can just take us through that journey all up until, like, you. You decide to go on a mission.

Zelle Phillips [02:24:23] Yeah, quite the journey. So, you know, I was raised in the church. Obviously you've heard my dad's side. So my dad and mom were really strong in the church. When I was growing up, I went to primary and stuff. We were always people who went to all the activities. When I got older, I did all the babysitting while my mom was released. Society president for all the Relief Society activities. I've always. Yeah, I was super strong in young women's and served in a lot of positions. But yes, I think going to same sex attraction, the first time that I ever, like, solidly, like, kind of realized that I had a crush on a girl because, like, growing up, I never had like crushes on dudes really, like, they were just whatever.

Zelle Phillips [02:25:07] Like, I never understood people's things with men. I was like, whatever. It's like, okay, that's weird. But yeah, I never had like a solid crush on any dude until. So when I was in eighth grade then I kind of had my first, like, I was like, oh, I think I like, have a crush on this girl. She was one of my friends.

Zelle Phillips [02:25:28] She was one of my. I can say her name, I guess. Laura. This is one of my closer friends. We were in a little group. It was me, my friend Jessica, who was a member, and then Laura, who was an atheist. But yeah, and I had a crush on her. And I was kind of freaked out by this because I was like, that's kind of weird. I was like, I don't think that's how you're supposed to do it. But I was like, oh, whatever, it's not that deep.

Zelle Phillips [02:25:52] And then how old was I in eighth grade? Because gay marriage hadn't been legalized yet. So I actually really didn't know too much about anything, like, because it just wasn't brought up very much at that time yet, really, at least in my life, I had no clue that that was, like, an option, really, or even, like, a problem. So I was kind of like, okay, that's kind of weird. And I even remember talking to one of my church friends about it. I was like, bro, I think I have a crush on Laura. And she was like, oh, yeah, me too. And I was like, oh, yeah, so this is normal. Did not realize that that was not normal.

Carah Burrell [02:26:24] Yeah, it's normal, but in the church it's not.

Zelle Phillips [02:26:27] Well, yeah, it is normal. But, yes, at the time I was like, oh, yeah. And I was like, okay, I guess that's not too deep. But then,

Gerardo Sumano [02:26:36] so that you started seeing it as, like, maybe you were admiring her and, like, you know that that's kind of like we. At least I was taught to think about it.

Zelle Phillips [02:26:49] Yes. I started to think that I was just confusing intense feelings of friendship. I was like, oh, I just really like, hanging out. I was like, we're just really good friends. And I'm getting confused because I've never had a crush on a dude. So I was like, oh, I just don't know what I'm thinking because I've never had a crush before. So maybe I'm just a little confused about really strong senses of friendship. So I kind of, like, just put that under the rug and was like, okay, well, that's over. We're just gonna not look at that for a little bit. And so, yeah, and I, like, continually throughout my childhood, or not like childhood, but, you know, younger childhood stuff.

Zelle Phillips [02:27:26] Like, always had crushes on, like, female actors and stuff. My love of Scarlett Johansson's legendary. I always mentioned Scarlett Johansson. She is my woman. That's why I called her. But, like, growing up, my mom had always said that, like, you know, she's like, oh, well, I have a girl crush on Angelina Jolie. So I just was like, oh, yeah, everybody has girl crushes.

Carah Burrell [02:27:45] But then mine was Natalie Portman. Yeah, I'm completely straight. But I would have said I. I was. Had an intense girl crush on Natalie Portman. Yeah.

Zelle Phillips [02:27:52] Oh, yeah, I love Natalie Portman. But, yeah, no. So I was like, okay, okay. I was like, this is just girl crushes. But then I failed to take into consideration the fact that I didn't have guy crushes or. And when I turned 16, like a normal, like, good little Mormon girl, I decided to start going on dates because, like, oh, I'm 16. I guess I should start going on dates.

Zelle Phillips [02:28:13] And so I went to youth conference, and I danced with this dude, and he asked me on a date. And I was like, yeah, sure. I was like, yeah, let's go on a date. And so we went on a date.

Zelle Phillips [02:28:26] I think we went. I don't even know. We went and played on playgrounds and stuff over at Peach park, which is a place down in Alabama. And we had some peach ice cream and stuff. Peaches are my favorite fruit. So I was like, oh, this is great. And I was like, okay, well, that was fun. And he's like, oh, well, you want to go on another date? And I was like, oh, okay. I guess I was like, I mean, I guess it was fun to hang out. Sure.

Zelle Phillips [02:28:48] And so we went tubing, because every year we go tubing as a youth group. And I invited him. I was like, oh, this will be fun. And we'll go to the. There's a steak dance later that night. So I was like, oh, and then we'll go to the dance together. It'll be a good time.

Zelle Phillips [02:29:03] I was thoroughly annoyed with him the whole time. He did nothing wrong. Anytime he talked to me, I was just upset. I was like, I just didn't want to talk to him. He kept trying to hold my hand and, like, put his arm around me. And I was, like, disgusted. I was like, no. I was like, you're not supposed to, like, put your arm around me. I was like, maybe I'm just super. And then after this experience, and then I get. I feel bad, but I, like, never talk to him again because I was thoroughly annoyed that he tried to, like, hug me goodbye. And, like, I don't know if he was trying to, like, maybe kiss me on the cheek or something, but I was like, oh, no, that's not allowed. But, yeah, I just. And then multiple experiences.

Gerardo Sumano [02:29:43] Is that how you felt with. With all kinds of guys, or is it because you knew that he had a romantic attraction to him or he might be interested, then there was more like that aversion or those, you know.

Carah Burrell [02:29:56] Yeah, aversion.

Mark Phillips [02:29:57] Do you relate to that?

Zelle Phillips [02:29:58] Yes, there was a lot of aversion. It was definitely a lot with dudes that I knew liked me or if I went on dates with dudes, I will say I did have one exception. With my childhood friend growing up, I had actually, weirdly enough, in eighth grade, right when I figured out my first girl crush, I very quickly discovered that I needed to have a guy crush. And that began my one and only first guy crush that stuck with it. I stuck with that Crush for about five or six years up until I was like, 16, because I didn't know what else to do, crush wise.

Zelle Phillips [02:30:36] I was like, okay, this has to be my solid crush. And I was like, well, I don't really like spending time with any other dudes. He was my best friend and neighbor. And I was like, I don't like spending time with any other dude. So this must be what a crush is.

Mark Phillips [02:30:49] They were best friends.

Zelle Phillips [02:30:50] Yes, we were best friends. We spent all time together and stuff. And I was like, oh. I was like, well, I guess I'll have to marry him because he's like. I literally. I was like, oh, yeah, we're gonna have to get married because it's the only dude that I've ever liked. And I write this in my journal, actually, to prepare for this interview. Went through and read all my journals starting from age 12 that I used to write. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But I literally wrote in my journal that I had, which I don't know why I thought I was straight because I literally wrote in my journal that I was like, I don't think I will ever have an attraction to any man. And I was like, oh, how'd I skip that? But yeah, yeah, the.

Carah Burrell [02:31:28] Do you just kind of bury that? Because, yeah, we're not in a position in the church to be able to be in that head space.

Zelle Phillips [02:31:34] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:31:34] I just were allowed to have those feelings.

Zelle Phillips [02:31:35] Yeah, I thought it would be better not to think that because I remember even like 15, 16 years old sitting and watching conference, and every year I'd sit there and I was like, you know, I've been so. I'm like, this is the year that they're going to tell me that it's okay that I want to date girls. I was like, this is the year that they're going to say it's okay. And I just kept waiting. And finally I gave up on that because I kept waiting. I was like, well, I was like, there's no. I was like, this can't be wrong because it felt so pure to like girls.

Zelle Phillips [02:32:03] I was like, there's no, like, you know, it's just like liking anybody else. It just felt like such a, like, you know, innocent thing. And I was like, there's no way. I was like, because God loves love, so why would he hate that? But, yeah, there's just a lot of internalized, like, freaking out.

Carah Burrell [02:32:20] So what were the messages that you were getting from the church, from young women's, from general conference, from your different sources? It sounds like your parents had pretty healthy respective views around. I don't know if you want to talk about your older sibling maybe coming out.

Zelle Phillips [02:32:34] Oh, I'm actually the oldest.

Carah Burrell [02:32:36] Oh, you are the oldest. Sorry.

Zelle Phillips [02:32:37] Yes.

Carah Burrell [02:32:37] I got. I'm a really good interviewer. I pay attention. Don't worry.

Zelle Phillips [02:32:40] No, you're good. I didn't mention.

Mark Phillips [02:32:43] I skipped over that when you asked me. Somehow. Somehow I missed it. So I apologize, everyone.

Carah Burrell [02:32:50] So what. What kind of influence did your sibling coming out have in the family dynamic? And then if you want to go into what kind of messages you were getting from your leaders at church about homosexuality.

Zelle Phillips [02:33:01] Yeah. So when my sibling. That was an interesting experience in general. My sibling, Luca is very. She's kind of like, dad, where she's very much with her convictions and can be very. Or not saying this about you, dad, but, like, can be very abrasive towards when things aren't exactly how they view them.

Zelle Phillips [02:33:27] And so when Luca came out, it could. It was a little explosive at times, and it led to Luca attacking a lot of people like that. I could, like, especially at the church. And I was very strong member, like, attacking members at the church for just being nice and stuff. And just a lot of things that I viewed as almost kind of a threat and made me. Honestly, it sounds bad, but I. Bur. I buried it a little deeper because I didn't want to be seen, like, to be like that. But, yeah, so I just had a lot of fears of being. I feel like a lot of, like, not exactly like, my friends and just a lot of people I knew were kind of freaked out by the whole thing.

Zelle Phillips [02:34:09] And it kind of scared me because I was like, oh, dear. They're gonna think that I'm gonna go crazy if I tell them. And I was like, well, if I, like, do this, then they're gonna think that I'm gonna. Like, not that Luca ever went crazy. Now that I'm, like, older and can look back on it, I'm like, oh, Luca was just going through, you know, teen rebellion, and there was a lot of just everything. But, like, at that age, I was like, oh, my gosh. It's like, they're gonna think I'm crazy. So I was like, okay, I gotta just hide that. But then also, I mean, I found that I actually had a lot of jealousy towards the fact that.

Zelle Phillips [02:34:47] Not that Luca was out, but the fact that Luca could do, like, whatever they wanted because they had no care. Because I had only wanted in my life to not care so much about, like, a lot of things, because I cared so much to the point of. Of self destruction about a lot of things. I had to do everything perfectly in my mind. Because my thought was I'd actually, I've mentioned this to my cousin. We're both older siblings, and at one point when we were about 16, we were having a conversation about just our thoughts on a lot of things, and we compared ourselves as sacrificial lambs.

Zelle Phillips [02:35:22] That had to be the ones who did everything, like, perfectly so that our siblings could live of however they want so the parents. So our parents could have one child who came out. Right. Because I don't know, that's like. We literally. We're like the sacrificial lames is how we viewed ourselves to make it so that our siblings, you know, could do what they wanted to, but our parents could also, like, you know, see that they had one kid that came out right. So they knew that they did a good job.

Carah Burrell [02:35:47] Yeah, I think that's probably especially common in Mormonism that, like, it's. You want to have all your whole family with you in the celestial kingdom, and one drops away. One's lgbtq, one's a feminist, one's a liberal one. Read the, you know, CES letter, and then, oh, at least we have one. And then the pressure that that puts on a child when they're just trying to be themselves and being authentic to whatever path in life that they want to take. They don't. Sometimes I think LDS parents have the best of intentions to want to have a family together, but they don't realize that. Yeah, I think that's. That's definitely sounds super common, Mark. What is that? How does that ring to you?

Mark Phillips [02:36:22] Yeah, yeah. To give. So. So, yeah. What? So Luca came out to us, and I think when. When they were 13 years old. And again, I have. I felt like I had always been supportive of certainly what I guess at the time, you know, was it like, you know, know, gay and lesbian issues. I wasn't as familiar with with some of the letters further on down. And so they. They came. It was. And it was at the time, you know, it seemed very sudden to. To us. And. And Luca was 13 and came and. And I think and said, you know, that I'm. I'm pansexual, which like, great, you know, and I don't know that I even knew that word exactly.

Mark Phillips [02:37:15] And so they explained to like, okay, that's kind of like being bisexual, but you recognize that there's more than two genders out there. So you're saying, you know, that I could be attracted to a man or a woman or a trans man or a trans woman or a gender non binary person. And like, okay, that wasn't something. But they also at that time came out as trans.

Mark Phillips [02:37:37] And that was something. I had a little more difficulty understanding it at the time. I had worked with trans patients that were adults and certainly I think I was supportive and affirming. But as a 13 year old, there was a part of me was like, well, you know, I'm not sure if you maybe, you know, I totally respect and tried to communicate that we respect and embraced their feelings about that, but felt like, well, that's kind of a big decision. Like, like that that's great to be exploring that. Like, do you have to be like set in stone on it? It can be like, okay, you know, this is something that we're figuring out for a little bit, but kind of like zelludes, like, like Luke is a person that once they've decided something, I mean, and to, to their, their credit and you know, like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm full down and this and either you fully accept everything or, or you know, and so at the time, so I mean, I don't feel like I handled everything perfectly.

Mark Phillips [02:38:37] I felt like at the time I tried to be as accepting as possible. I think anyone who in the trans community would say I was not as affirming as I could have been as I should have been at that time on her trans or their trans identity. But so we said, first of all, I said, we love you, we'll always love you.

Mark Phillips [02:39:03] That we're fine with that. That's absolutely fine. But the one thing at the time, and so I'll admit to anybody who wants to throw hate at me and that's fine. This is, you know, that we didn't. But anyway.

Mark Phillips [02:39:22] But we didn't use her preferred pronouns and it took us a little while to start getting. Calling them by their preferred names. And so I've apologized to Luca for that. But that took a little while and now I will say anyways, but they asked, you know, that spring they asked to go to the Pride parade and I took Luca to the Pride Parade anyway and we've gone every year since.

Mark Phillips [02:39:55] But so, but as things did evolve, they decided they were more, they realized they were more gender fluid and non binary. So they prefer they, them or he him pronouns. So I try my very best to always address them with they them pronouns. And we told them at that time that we would support them when they turned 18 in changing their name if that's what they wanted to do.

Mark Phillips [02:40:30] And we held to that. And so when they turned 18, we found out that in Alabama you're not an adult when you're 18, so you actually can't change your name yourself. So we had to. But they had turned 18 and we had told them we would support them. So we actually went through as the parents the process of changing their name and, and have, and tried to support that and have always.

Mark Phillips [02:40:52] But the first couple of years we were not fully affirming of their pronouns and their name, but we did and they weren't happy about that and they let us know it and they weren't. And we also, We didn't make them. I generally don't make my children do things, but we did heavily. We put rewards and consequences for going to church for a couple of years. Like you can choose not to go to church, but if not, then you can't have your tablet, you know, so, and now we did. We said, you know, we wanted at that time for them to go to church and sit with us for sacrament meeting.

Mark Phillips [02:41:42] We didn't care. After that they didn't have to go to Sunday school, they didn't have to go to, to young women's if they didn't want to. And, and they, and they would, from week to week, most weeks, they would choose to come to church with us to be able to have the privileges for the first couple years. And then, and then they would, depending on who, what friends were there, maybe they would go to, to Sunday school or maybe not.

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:03] You know, had the gay policy happened at that time, you know, the exclusion policy.

Mark Phillips [02:42:11] Yeah, that was, that was around that

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:14] time period, what 2015 was when it was November 2015 and then it rescinded in 2019.

Mark Phillips [02:42:20] 19. Yeah, yeah. That would have been after, I think after that. Let's see, it wouldn't have been, would have been about five or six years ago. So right about that time, 2015, 2016. Yeah. So did it affect you guys at all?

Gerardo Sumano [02:42:37] Like, is it something that was in your mind?

Mark Phillips [02:42:41] I had kind of mixed feelings. I thought it was a stupid move. I thought, well, I guess technically speaking the church has the right to say who they do and don't baptize. And I recognized that in some way, maybe there were some intentions to not have division within families, I felt at that time, but I didn't like it overall. And I thought it was.

Mark Phillips [02:43:08] It was caught that the policy was, was causing unnecessary problems, which obviously I guess they thought eventually too, because then they changed it back. Right. But. And I was still doing a little bit of work with LDS Family Services when that came out. And I had a couple of patients that were really upset about, or a couple of clients that were really upset about that. So I remember when that happened.

Mark Phillips [02:43:28] But. And I tried to, you know, validate their, Their, their disappointment and concern with that. But. But, yeah, so after, but after a couple years, we did. We saw, okay, this is not just a 13 year old. And that's part of it, just parental stuff. And this is, this is a 13 year old. And like, how much autonomy do we give a 13 year old? But as time went on a couple of years, we said, no, okay, this is. And they had decided they're more gender fluid. And that to me fit better with. With what I was seeing. So that was easier a little bit.

Mark Phillips [02:44:03] And so we. Around 16, they said, you know what? I don't care if you take away my phone now. I'm not going to church again. And we sat and we talked about it. We said, okay, that's fine. We're not going to take away your phone. Just don't go to church anymore. And so we stopped trying to pressure them to go to church at that time. And again every year that became kind of a thing from. I guess. I guess that would have been 2015 or so. Me and Luca would go to Pride, 2015, 2016. And then in 2020, it was canceled. And then in 2021, this is our little Pride diary. Zelle was back.

Zelle Phillips [02:44:45] That was my first Pride.

Mark Phillips [02:44:46] And Zelle went with us to Pride. And my wife came with us and Luke and, and another niece and nephew that, that came. That came with us to Pride.

Gerardo Sumano [02:44:59] So you guys need to come to the Salt Lake one.

Zelle Phillips [02:45:02] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [02:45:02] It's huge. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:45:05] What I'm just curious to know. You're getting, you know, obviously emotional and it means a lot to support children and family members and friends who have, you know, gender identities and sexual orientations all across this wide spectrum. So what does it mean to you as somebody who comes from a Mormon background to be able to accept these people for living as their authentic selves?

Mark Phillips [02:45:31] Yeah, yeah, that's. I mean, to me, you know, even as active as I was in the church, you know, starting from a mission, I Was I considered myself a Christian before a Mormon. And to me that is in line with what I believe is true Christianity is to accept people for who they are.

Mark Phillips [02:45:52] And that was you know, part of my, my post when I. Well, I won't get to that maybe yet but, but yeah, that, that so that you know, I can look back and, and see that there I've had somewhat of an evolution on that. I like to think that in a lot of ways I was, I tried to be or I, you know, I was kind of somewhat forward thinking on those issues and, and pretty early on identified that I didn't fully agree with the church's stance on those things. And I was able, it kind of was just nuanced about that. But if there was a private conversation with somebody, you know, I tried to be affirming and tried to be supportive and tried to be an ally but, but I wasn't, you know, I wasn't

Zelle Phillips [02:46:38] a

Mark Phillips [02:46:41] as vocal of an ally I think as I should have been in in some cases because of concern about my reputation in the church and my parents reputation in our stake for there was a, you know, time period that that was true.

Carah Burrell [02:46:56] I'm just curious if you relate to this as well because I feel like we, I've talked to enough, whether it's ex Mormons or Mormons that they say that they're affirming but there also comes with a but. So you just mentioned but reputation or there's. But technically we know that the eternal doctrine is two genders in the pre earth life and you know, the post mortal life of what's going to be inherited. And so you're still able to be affirming on the outside while inwardly still holding to the doctor. Is that how you felt as well that you knew or were you still questioning the entire time about what God's eternal plan was for families?

Mark Phillips [02:47:31] Yeah, no, yeah, I think I was in some ways I was more affirming on the inside than I was on the outside a little bit. I mean I was like, I can't remember. I mean at some point a number of years ago I thought the church has just got this wrong. And so I tried wherever I could to be helpful to people, whether it be inside or outside the church. But yeah, inside the church there was a little bit and I mean there were elders quorum meetings. There's another brother in our ward who has a gay son where somebody said some kind of remark about gay people and, and me and this other brother were just like no, we're putting an

Carah Burrell [02:48:10] End to this not doing that here.

Mark Phillips [02:48:11] Yeah, no, it happened. And, and so, so we. So I was vocal. I mean, and I get. I have always been vocal about gender, about marriage equality stuff to anybody, any stake president, anybody listen to me. And I had, you know, my, you know, again, my reasonings is, is my, you know, my great, great great grandparents were persecuted for their choice of how they want to marry. And what in the world business do we have telling other people?

Mark Phillips [02:48:37] I think maybe my review. I don't know if I felt like the church should change. I stood for a long time, held up like, okay, that's something that's supposed to come from the brethren. They'll change when the time is right. That held on for a little while, but eventually then I started looking at the history more and I said, no. In my view, the church has only made serious policy changes like that when they have enormous amounts of external pressure. That's true with polygamy. That's true with blacks in the priesthood. It didn't come from revelation. It came from enormous amounts of external pressure. And when the church's position, when holding on with their fingernails clawing, became untenable anymore, they just couldn't function in society anymore with that type of bigotry.

Mark Phillips [02:49:22] That's my view of what happened with the priesthood and temple ban. You know, they just couldn't function anymore as a church. They were going to be seen as a pariah to every person with common decency. You know, if they continued that. And I've said that many times when I talk to my. Wait, I haven't anyways, but I've said that to many people. I think that's where the church is going. They'll eventually have to change, but I don't want to wait around for that.

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:50] There's a video, and I don't know if you've seen it, of Elder Holland talking about social issues and where the culture of the world is. And he. He literally does this with his hands. Have you seen it?

Mark Phillips [02:50:03] No, I haven't seen it.

Gerardo Sumano [02:50:03] He goes and says, like, so here's where the world is and, and the culture. And here's where the church is. And then the culture of the world moves here. And then we'll move here, and then

Carah Burrell [02:50:14] the culture moves here.

Gerardo Sumano [02:50:15] So he, like, what's his point?

Mark Phillips [02:50:17] I mean, he's totally right.

Gerardo Sumano [02:50:18] He explicitly admits to it that the church is always behind tailgating the world in social issues.

Mark Phillips [02:50:26] Yeah, no, and that's. I, again, that's. I could have given that to. I mean, I've said that for 20 years to people in the church. That was what that was. Again, being an observer of history, that was what I see. So. And that became my question. And in fact, I'll tell you, one of my first inclinations to my parents probably that I had some concerns was I came over to my parents house. They live 30 minutes away from me and my dad. Look, this was a couple years ago, was downstairs and watching on BYUtv, the church's 40th anniversary celebration of, you know, giving black people priesthood and temple rights.

Mark Phillips [02:51:05] Right. And so I think that was a couple. That must have been a couple years ago now. And he was watching it and I said, what are you watching? He told me. And I said, they're celebrating this. And he's like, what do you mean? And I just kind of went off. I was like, you know, what a church, if we're led, we must not understand revelation. That was part of my premise. Because if a church is led by revelation, we should be on the forefront of these issues. We shouldn't be trailing 20 years or whatever you know, behind 20 years, 40 years, 50 years, depending on the issue behind if Jesus was okay with blacks having the priesthood the whole time.

Mark Phillips [02:51:39] Which is what I read when I read the gospel topics essays. And that was just a church policy. Well, you know, why weren't these inspired brethren inspired way early in the civil rights movement like, you know, like some other more liberal churches were, and be out there marching for these rights, not instead, you know, oppose the civil Rights Amendment and oppose the ERA and all these things. And then slowly, 20 and 30 years later, slowly. Well, guess what? They. The sisters can now be sister trainers or whatever. They can be in the mission, you

Carah Burrell [02:52:14] know, but they can't now. Yeah.

Mark Phillips [02:52:16] Oh my gosh. Women can wear pants now. I mean, that's. Yeah, yeah. My mother went to byu. They couldn't wear them at byu.

Zelle Phillips [02:52:23] Really?

Mark Phillips [02:52:23] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:52:25] It makes me think of. There is speaking of things that me and Gerardo, since we're in the space constantly and like, I just have ideas that come to my head and we're gonna be putting out ideas that maybe you don't know what we're exactly talking about or film clips or whatever, but there's this Mormon League leaks that came from the church about like why people are leaving and there's like all these bubbles. Does that sound familiar?

Gerardo Sumano [02:52:45] Yes.

Carah Burrell [02:52:45] And like one of them is my boss, John De Lynn.

Zelle Phillips [02:52:47] Right.

Carah Burrell [02:52:48] Denver snuffer.

Mark Phillips [02:52:49] And then.

Carah Burrell [02:52:50] And there's like more left wing issues and right wing issues. But going back to like your. Like, the fundamentalist people in that branch. It reminds me that there are a lot. There are still people who. They're not even. They don't care that the Prophet's not talking about social issues and, like, racism or LGBTQ issues. They're angry that the church is moving, like Cardiff said, like Holland said.

Mark Phillips [02:53:08] Sure.

Carah Burrell [02:53:09] They're more angry that it's not more fundamentalist, that it's.

Mark Phillips [02:53:12] That's.

Carah Burrell [02:53:12] That we're going away from the roots of the church into, like, more progressive spaces. And I always find that really fascinating that there are people that are leaving the church, but they're doing it for, like, more fundamentalist reasons, like you mentioned earlier. Like, it's just. Yeah. Things are just not adding up. And it's really interesting to me what people.

Gerardo Sumano [02:53:31] What.

Carah Burrell [02:53:31] What people are. They're upset that Holland would ever say that we're behind. And I was like, yeah, like, we're.

Zelle Phillips [02:53:37] We're.

Carah Burrell [02:53:38] We're have some catching up to do, and they're upset that we're. That we are catching up, you know? So would you mind if we got into what, Zelle, what led you into feeling like you needed to put in your mission papers, take us through, like, your mindset that. Put those mission papers, and then what call did you get, and what was your reaction?

Zelle's Mission Call and Experience at BYU-Idaho

Zelle Phillips [02:54:02] So I had reached my, like, graduate, like, end of senior year, and I had been planning to go with ilp. I don't know if you've heard of them.

Carah Burrell [02:54:11] I did. My sister did ilp. Yeah, they rejected me. They rejected you? Yeah. I have hard feelings. Go on, ilp.

Zelle Phillips [02:54:18] It's okay.

Mark Phillips [02:54:19] We have hard feelings, too.

Zelle Phillips [02:54:20] So, yeah, no, so I went, and I was gonna go teach in China, and they kept, like, putting off telling me, like, where I was going and all this stuff, and I was like, okay, that's kind of weird. And then, like, a month before I was supposed to leave, they were like, actually, you can't go to China because we don't have enough. Enough spaces, and China's being weird. And we were like, okay. And so that kind of derailed my plans a little.

Zelle Phillips [02:54:44] And so I was a little bit like, okay, this is kind of weird. So I just kind of went and started working, and I got offered a nannying job down in Florida. And so I was doing that, but before I left for my nanny job, because that's actually right before I left was when I kind of. I had started to get, I don't know, kind of, like, concerned about. I'm not 100 sure what, but just different Things with the church, because I had started.

Zelle Phillips [02:55:18] Just kind of a few things had started to really concern me. Like, a lot of my friends growing up were black because I grew up in Birmingham and stuff. So I was kind of concerned about that whole issue because I actually. That was an embarrassing time when I found out about that, when one of my friends brought it up, and I was like, no, my church would never do that. And then I looked it up and we totally had done that, the whole not giving the priesthood and stuff. And I was really embarrassed by that and very caught off guard. But I had always had a lot of questions.

Zelle Phillips [02:55:51] Weirdly enough, my topic of obsession in the church was the afterlife. I was very concerned with death and, like, anything to do with the plan of salvation and stuff. My parents, anybody who knows me can tell you I was very intense about the plan of salvation, drawing it out everywhere. It was like my. A lot of my thought process went into it, and I was always asking questions that couldn't be answered about what happens after death. And I was very concerned about it. It. Which I don't know why I was now, because now I think I'd be much better to be concerned with life, but I was very concerned with death, which I feel like wasn't very good for my mental state a lot of the times, because I felt like I've actually described it as I was living to die for a long time, really, because everything I did, I was very concerned about what was going to happen, what my friends were going to do, what my parents were going to do, what was going to happen to my family.

Zelle Phillips [02:56:51] I had agreements with my. Because after I learned about, like, after you die, polygamy was still gonna be, like, polygamy was going to be a thing to get you into the celestial kingdom, which thoroughly upset me. Also, I started picking out friends that I knew, like, either weren't gonna get married or they weren't gonna get married in the church, that they could marry my husband to come to heaven with me because I was very concerned for them. And I started telling. Which is so weird now that I'm looking back on about. I told my friends, certain ones, I was like, like, I have a cousin.

Zelle Phillips [02:57:22] She never wanted to get married, and I have a friend who never wanted to get married. And I was like, well, you guys can marry my husband and we can all go to heaven. I was like. I was very concerned. I was like, you guys are gonna come with me because I didn't want to be left alone with my husband.

Mark Phillips [02:57:34] Weird as that is not Being attracted to men may have made it easier to have the idea of sharing a husband. I don't know.

Carah Burrell [02:57:40] I know.

Zelle Phillips [02:57:40] I was like, yeah. I was like, yeah, no, you guys can marry my husband. I don't really care. You can come with me. It's fine. I'd rather have y' all in heaven anyway. But, yes, very concerned about that, but just a lot of concerns. And then obviously I started kind of at this point. This is kind of where I started, really, because as much as you think it'd be very obvious to me that I wasn't attracted to men, it really wasn't. My friends growing up, a lot of them were gay, and they always told me I was the gayest straight person they ever knew. And I always thought that that was just kind of funny. I was like, oh, they just like that because I can relate a lot. And I was like. I feel like I was just super open and stuff and was like, oh, yeah, of course.

Carah Burrell [02:58:18] But

Gerardo Sumano [02:58:21] I have a question.

Mark Phillips [02:58:22] So.

Gerardo Sumano [02:58:25] So John has talked about a lot on the podcast recently about the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. Sometimes when gay people come on the podcast and tell our story, or we've told our story, we've talked about how we felt like we were more feminine growing up and like, we were bullied about being feminine. And maybe for a less. There's been lesbian recently on Mormon stories that talked about feeling like, not liking a lot of girly things, but that's completely separate from sexual orientation.

Zelle Phillips [02:59:01] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:02] So there can be a lesbian that is super feminine and likes doing all the girl stuff, but is only attracted to girls.

Zelle Phillips [02:59:11] Oh, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:59:12] So what was your experience as far as of your gender identity? And is that part of what was actually making you wonder if you were not a lesbian?

Zelle Phillips [02:59:24] So gender identity wise, growing up, I was quite a tomboy. A lot of my friends were dudes. I did a lot of woodsy stuff out in the woods with machetes, building forts and, like, you know, shooting with airsoft guns and stuff and all that kind of things. But as I got older, I did become, I'd say, very feminine. I'm pretty feminine.

Zelle Phillips [02:59:44] And, yeah, you don't hear a lot about. Well, especially just if you're not as in the community, you don't hear as much about, like, feminine lesbians. So that was kind of something that I just was like, oh, well, I'm girly. And I was like.

Zelle Phillips [03:00:00] But honestly, I really just. It wasn't in the cards in my mind for me. Like, I just didn't even think to continue Consider it for a minute. Like, even if I had all these. Like, now that I look back on it, now that I read, like, my old journals and stuff, I'm like, what in the world was I thinking? Like, how did I not see this? Literally write all this stuff? But I think one of the biggest kind of turning points for me realizing that it really wasn't gonna work with dudes and starting my whole, like, actual free. Because I'd always kind of assumed that I must be bi.

Zelle Phillips [03:00:31] But that really wasn't too concerning to me because I was like, well, you know, I'll just get married to a man in the temple. It's not the end of the world. I was like, you know, like, I can just make this, like, a pat. Like, you know, that can be my little secret. That's what I always. I was like, you know, I was pretty comfortable with that. It never bothered me too much because in the end, it didn't get in the way of my plans, as bad as that sounds. But that's just how I thought about it.

Zelle Phillips [03:00:56] But I think the major breaking point for me realizing that I don't think. Think I like men at all and that I really don't think I could get married to a man and live my life and be happy was actually a very recurring friend that I had since my freshman year of high school, named Tyrell.

Zelle Phillips [03:01:16] He, when I was a freshman, admitted that he liked me, which totally blew me out of the water, because I had no idea. Everybody I knew was very much deeply in the friend zone before I even, like. Like, even knew them deeply. So I was very, like, shocked by this. It really, like, kind of upturned things because I was like, whoa.

Zelle Phillips [03:01:34] Like, that's kind of weird. But, you know, I tried really hard because I was like, he was a really nice dude, and I was like, you know, sure. I was like. So we went to. I was in ROTC at the time. We went to the Military Ball together. It was a good time. But throughout the years, he actually moved after my freshman year. But throughout the years, he'd, like, come back to visit and stuff, and we'd always hang out because we were in the same friend group of school friends.

Zelle Phillips [03:01:57] And, like, he always was very kind and stuff. And just, like, honestly, in any other situation, probably would have been a great option, like, for dating. Like, we clicked really well and stuff, and so we went on a few dates and stuff, but I, like, could not, like, like him. I tried so hard. Like, it was really hard for me, honestly, because it really concerned Me that I couldn't figure out why I couldn't, like, this person that every, like, everybody said that, like, you know, we made such a cute couple, and everything was going so well, and I just could not like him. And, like, there's so many times where we probably should have kissed, but I just couldn't.

Zelle Phillips [03:02:41] Like, it freaked me out. Like, I would get, like. My legs would get weak, and I'd want to pass out if I thought about kissing anybody. Like, well, not anybody, but, like, any, like, dude in any, like, time that we went on dates. I never had a boyfriend, but.

Zelle Phillips [03:02:57] And it kind of finally hit me when for my birthday, he drove. I. I was in Florida as a nanny, and I went to Universal Studios, and for my birthday, he drove down to Universal Studios to, like, go to the park with me because he's a big fan of Transformers and I love Spider Man. And I was like, I, oh, yeah, this will be so fun. And Luca was there, too, because that was one of my requests for my birthday was to have Luca sent down, because Luca's birthday is about two weeks before mine. I was like, oh, yeah, me and Luca, for a birthday, we can go to Universal Studios and have a good time, go to the Harry Potter world.

Zelle Phillips [03:03:32] And Tara's like, oh, you want me to come down for your birthday? I was like, oh, yeah, that would be so fun. And we had a great time. And then at the end of the night when we were, like, he was leaving and we were going back to the place we were staying, and he, like, comes in to hug me, and he comes in to kiss me. And in that moment, I was like, this is wrong. I can't do this.

Zelle Phillips [03:03:51] And I was torn up about this for months. Calling my mom, crying, kept telling her that I was broken. I was broken. I can't figure out why I can't love people. I was upset. Like, I tried after this to go on a few more dates once I got to college, but that's after mission and all that. But, like, it really hit me that, like, it didn't matter what they did. It wasn't gonna work. And this caused a lot of stress because it really ruined the idea of what I thought at the time was an eternal marriage. And it just upset me greatly.

Gerardo Sumano [03:04:27] For me, that's. That. That I had, like, pretty much the same experience after my mission. That was the moment that hit me when a girl kissed me and I experienced aversion as well. And, yeah, it hit me like, yeah, there's no way this is gonna work.

Zelle Phillips [03:04:44] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:04:45] But then you decided to go on your mission?

Zelle Phillips [03:04:46] Yes. And so that's what led into. Yes, sorry, I totally forgot my track. But that's what led into my mission was. That was right when I was leaving Florida. Then that's when it hit me, like, that I really had to go on a mission.

Zelle Phillips [03:05:01] But at first I was kind of like, maybe that's not so. I was like, okay, this has got to be like. I was like, maybe I'm just like making this up and stuff. I need to like, have confirmation. Because I was still a very strong member and I really was holding on to it really hard. And so I like, I remember praying before a fast Sunday and I like, prayed and I was like, you know, heavenly Father, if I'm supposed to go on a mission? Because I was kind of starting to consider it hardcore now. I was like, because that's what kind of sent me on the idea of I need to go on a mission.

Zelle Phillips [03:05:28] I was like, that was my last ditch effort. I was like, heavenly Father, if I'm supposed to go on a mission, you have to send me a sign. I was like, because I need to make sure that I'm 100% that this is going to be what's going to save me. Because I was like, this is going to be like, what makes me better. I'm going to go back to being normal. Everything's going to be okay. Like, I was just freaking out. And that Sunday, like two separate people gave up, came up and gave talks about missions and how they need to get. How, like, if you're thinking about you should go on a mission.

Zelle Phillips [03:05:53] I was like, okay, okay. And then the hammer blow that killed me was as I was walking out, one of our dear sweet friends, Sister Willis, comes up to me and says, I don't know why, but I feel like I need to give you this. And hands me a temple dress in my size.

Zelle Phillips [03:06:13] And I, it was getting a death sentence when she handed me that temple dress. Because in my mind I was like, like, that means I have to go on a mission. And I literally felt like a death sentence. Like, it just dropped down and I picked up the dress and I walked out and I went to my room when we got home and just cried. And then I went and put in my mission papers. And I remember when I was being set apart, I like, I don't know how I got through all those mission things about how what are my motivations and stuff. Like, I lied through everything.

Zelle Phillips [03:06:46] It was horrible. And then when they were setting me apart that night, I was holding back tears as they set me apart because it felt like my life was ending. And we went. And then we, like, everything was going okay. And I, like, kind of got myself up. Oh, and then I got my mission call. And I was actually pretty excited about the mission call because, you know, growing up in the church, you always do wonder where you would get called if you went on a mission. You're like, oh, I wonder where I would be sent. Because, you know, you grow up with all the mission stories and exotic like, Honduras.

Zelle Phillips [03:07:16] So I was like, I had all my shots for China. A lot of my dad's side of the family has gone to Asia. I was ready. I was going to Asia. I knew it. I was like. And I even said, I was like, I didn't mind where I wanted to go. I was like, I could go anywhere in the world. Anywhere is cool. Except for Utah or Idaho. I hate Utah or Idaho. That's what I said. And I got called to Salt Lake City West, Spanish speaking.

Zelle Phillips [03:07:41] I luckily had opened my call before my call opening party that night in the car with my friend, because I was too excited. As soon as I, like, as soon as I got. I was like, I have to open it right now beforehand.

Carah Burrell [03:07:56] And I never heard of somebody doing that.

Zelle Phillips [03:07:58] Yeah, it was great. I opened it.

Mark Phillips [03:08:01] Facebook Live was a farce.

Zelle Phillips [03:08:03] Yes, it was. It was definitely prepare your so good

Mark Phillips [03:08:06] that she did, though.

Zelle Phillips [03:08:08] Yes.

Carah Burrell [03:08:08] Now, I mean, now that what you just said was like, that you lied through the entire thing for your motivations. Because first of all, what were your motivations for serving a mission to make it clear? My motivations, like, if you had to be honest.

Zelle Phillips [03:08:20] So while I did think the church could help a lot of people, a lot of it was I thought it would be a last ditch effort to, like, make myself better. And I thought that it would kind of. I really, like, not even fix the fact that I was attracted to girls, but more fix my mindset towards everything I thought it would give me. Because everybody who goes on a mission, like, has all these great spiritual experiences and comes back, like, really strong. And I was like, that's what I need. Because I could tell that I was starting to kind of, like, go off a little bit.

Zelle Phillips [03:08:53] And I was like, no, no. I was like, this is going to be to save my eternal family. That was always my. I wrote about this in my creative writing class my sophomore year of high school when they said, what motivates you in life was my eternal family. I did everything in my power to keep my pretend family. That didn't even exist yet.

Zelle Phillips [03:09:12] Safe. I wanted them. I wanted my future kids, my future husband. We all had to get to the celestial kingdom. And that was a big motivator in my life because that's what a lot of young women's was. It's always about, you know, you're the. You're the mother of the family, you're in charge of, as bad as it was, but you're in charge of the spiritual stuff. Like, you can't let your kids fall. You can't let this. So I was very intent on the fact that, like, my spiritual, like, my spiritual, my future family was like, in danger if I fell.

Carah Burrell [03:09:43] So that you do something as drastic as serving a mission. Kind of like you said, that felt like a death sentence.

Zelle Phillips [03:09:50] Yes.

Carah Burrell [03:09:50] Because I'll talk with a lot of believing Mormons in the comments of, you know, Tick Tock videos on Mormon stories. And would you mind even speaking a little bit further to the mindset that I think a lot of Mormons still don't understand about the conditioning that you just mentioned about what you're. What you care about is you needing to be straight, have an eternal family, marry in the temple. Because I think there's this false notion that every missionary who goes on a mission did it out of their own free will and choice.

Zelle Phillips [03:10:20] And it was so. And it's. And now I'm looking back, it's a little silly. I mean, not silly exactly, but like, there was never pressure from my parents or anything. Like, it's not like my parents were like, oh, you have to go on it. Like, honestly, it was never really blown away.

Mark Phillips [03:10:33] We were like, what? You know, and I didn't, the whole time, didn't really. I couldn't quite understand why you were doing it. I mean, I was good with it, but I didn't quite understand.

Carah Burrell [03:10:41] No.

Zelle Phillips [03:10:41] And none of my friends, like, my friends from church, and none of them questioned it, even though it was completely out of character. Like, I had made up my mind after. Because that's how a lot of things go is I think about things and I internalize them for a while. And then once I've made up my mind, I. To say it. And so at this point, I'd been considering it for a little bit ever since the incident at Universal, or I think actually I'd put him. But yes, there is a lot going on. But just, yeah, with my conditioning and stuff, I had just considered a lot of it to be like, my burden to bear, that I had to do to save a lot.

Zelle Phillips [03:11:18] Well, a lot of things I had always. I don't know why, but put myself as, like, the saving. Like, not exactly like, the savior, but, like, I thought that I was in charge of saving my family, both, like, here on Earth and, like. Or not here on Earth, but, like, my, like, current family and my future family. Like, I have, like, entries in my journal where it's just talking about how I need to be more obedient to the law so that I can, like. Like, I'm more obedient than, like, just very random examples. I was like, I need to be more obedient because when I'm obedient, people are happier.

Zelle Phillips [03:11:54] I need to be more obedient so that, you know all these things, like, always just, like, sounds like a raving lunatic looking through. Obedient, obedient, obedient. Like, on these, like, wow. Pages I used to write. It's crazy.

Gerardo Sumano [03:12:08] And so what was your experience going on on your mission? So you. You were disappointed by being called Soul Lake, but you still went, right?

Zelle Phillips [03:12:16] Oh, yes.

Carah Burrell [03:12:18] I just want to ask really quickly. You mentioned in your outline that you went through the temple. And I always like to validate people who have good temple experiences and bad. Because it's a unique experience. Is there anything you want to say about how the temple was for you?

Zelle Phillips [03:12:33] That was if my. I say if my mission was the end of it all. For me, the temple experience was the story start of the end, really, because my temple experience, while it wasn't bad, I was a little bit. I'm not gonna lie, freaked out as you would be, because, you know, like, I just remember, like, standing there, and everybody's like, oh, wasn't that so great? Didn't you love it? It was such a good time. And I'm like. I was, like, just staring. I was like, this is not what I thought it was.

Zelle Phillips [03:13:08] And my biggest thing spiraling from the temple experience was actually my weird relationship with garments that sprouted from it, because that honestly ended up being. The more the temple ended up making me have a lot of questions about things just going through it. I was like, wait. And I started noticing, like, things that didn't match up and things that just didn't make sense and, like, contradictions in the ceremony. And I was like, okay, this is kind of weird. But I ended up, well, here. I guess I'll keep in order. So after the temple experience, which thoroughly freaked me out, and I started to wonder what type of church I was in, and I was kind of a little bit worried about this, I decided I was going to stick through with the mission because at this point I was too far in and I was like, you know, whatever, whatever, I'll go, it'll be great.

Zelle Phillips [03:13:56] I'll just keep a good mindset. And that's like a thing that's also echoed in my mission journals is I'll talk. I would talk about things that had happened and how they affect me. And I'd say, but I have to stay positive. But I have to stay positive, like all these things.

Zelle Phillips [03:14:10] But I went to the Seise Ma in Mexico City. I met my companion. I cannot remember my companions. Hermana Hunt. Yeah. But I met my companion and I met my district, which actually me and my district, we got along very well.

Zelle Phillips [03:14:31] But about. So I'm not one to ever get homesick and I won't. I never got homesick my whole 14 days on the, say CMA before COVID got us deported from Mexico, as I like to say. But. But about three days in, I started and I'm.

Zelle Phillips [03:14:52] I'm not one to cry a lot. Like I cry about things, but not like emotionally like cry a lot. My third day of the mission, I started crying and I cried every single day until I was released.

Carah Burrell [03:15:04] About what exactly? Like the control, the I.

Zelle Phillips [03:15:08] So actually, weirdly enough, my dad, as you heard earlier, said that his mission was his one. He was like, you know, kind of a rule breaker and his mission was his one place of where he like decided to follow the rules.

Zelle Phillips [03:15:21] I went the complete opposite direction. I've always been a rule follower, kind of a goody two shoes. I did exactly what I said. Like I always like did exactly what I was supposed to. I didn't drink. I didn't do like any sort of like drugs or anything. I didn't even curse before I went to college. I could count the number of times I'd cursed on one hand and I knew the exact instances and I felt terrible about them. But the mission brought out something in me, just rebellion wise. I couldn't stand being told what to do. It turned out I like anything that they said.

Zelle Phillips [03:15:54] I resented it. It made me so mad that they felt like they had control over my. Like, I felt like they were trying to control my mind, my body, everything about me, anything. And I just started to spiral about this. And then I also had a lot of trouble with the fact that as silly as it was, I for some reason decided I should have been fluent by in Spanish by the third day in the mtc.

Zelle Phillips [03:16:17] And the fact that I couldn'. My instructors, when they spoke Spanish also upset me greatly. And that's actually what started to make me cry was the fact that I didn't know Spanish, which was really silly. But, yeah, a lot of it was losing that control and then realizing at the same time that I felt like I'd never had control in my entire life, and then realizing that the little control I had had had been taken away. And I felt like. And this started my weird relationship with garments where I felt like the church owned me. And then I began to see my garments as a contract that I wore on my skin that I didn't realize what I was signing.

Zelle Phillips [03:17:03] And it started this weird. I don't know how it mentally did this, but I started connecting my garments with my body and I stopped, like, I did a lot of, like, starving myself out of resentment towards my garments, which I don't exactly know what my mental spot was there. I did this more after my mission because I kind of went into a depression when I got back from my mission. For those two weeks, I just would lay in my bed and cry all the time because I didn't know what to do.

Zelle Phillips [03:17:38] But, yeah, mentally, it just did bad things to me. I told my mom about how I felt like we were being brainwashed on the mission and how, like, just all sorts of things where, like, they would tell us, you know, when they told us that the sasaime was being shut down, everybody was like, freaking out. And they're like, oh, no, you need to smile, you need to be happy. You know, this is God's plan. You need to pretend like nothing's wrong tomorrow. And then they also told me we had an hour to pack back.

Carah Burrell [03:18:07] Yeah, that always fascinated me. I haven't talked to somebody who served a mission during COVID before. So what is that like being called to serve a mission and then you put your faith in the prophet calling you to this place and these leaders, and then all of a sudden there's no, like, foresight of where these missionaries were supposed to be. And then suddenly you're being told you have an hour to pack and that you're heading home for good.

Zelle Phillips [03:18:31] Or they actually told me I was headed. They actually sent me to the wrong place place. They send us all to our mission. So all 495 of us who are in the sama, we were ripped from our districts without any warning, which is a big deal because as anybody who's been on a mission knows, you get really close with your district really fast because that's kind of all you have at the mission. I don't Know, maybe that's only my experience, but you get really close with them. And we were not expecting it. We had worked out that morning together as a district. We had written our daily goals for the day and we were going to class and laughing and stuff when somebody ran in and they were like, the seme is closing before the Mexican like, or before the like, border closes, basically.

Zelle Phillips [03:19:19] And they were like, you have an hour to pack. We gotta go, we gotta go. And it was just mass chaos. We're freaking out. They like packed us up in different shuttles and took us to the airport. And me and a few, my other. I had two district members with me.

Zelle Phillips [03:19:38] The rest of them were sent off to their missions, but two district members who came with me and a few other people who are going to Utah. And they left us in the Mexico City airport for five hours without any explanation or anything. We just wandered around aimlessly and it was an exciting time. One of my district members was, she had celiac disease. And then the other one was like deathly allergic to peanuts. And we didn't know enough Spanish to find food for them in the airport because we couldn't articulate the fact that they couldn't have gluten or peanuts. And so that was a little bit scary because yeah, we were just a bunch of, of 18, 19 year olds who didn't know Spanish in an airport.

Gerardo Sumano [03:20:28] So they, they had ticket, they were trying to find tickets for you guys or like.

Zelle Phillips [03:20:32] Yeah, they got us tickets. And so that night we flew to Salt Lake City and we got there at 1 in the morning. And we get there, we're like all like, I'm like, in clothes that I would never fly in because I was wearing stuff in from Mexico. So we're like freezing, we're tired, we're like traumatized because we're like ripped from our like, area that we were in. And our kind of like, you know, our whole idea of what was going to be for the next two years was messed up. And we get there and my stake president shows up like, or not my state, my mission president shows up like 10 minutes late and he's like, they just called me.

Zelle Phillips [03:21:07] You weren't supposed to be sent here. He's like, we had no idea you guys were coming. Oh my gosh. He's like, I don't know how they sent all these missionaries here and didn't tell us. Like, so. So I called my dad and on the next, like the next day, they sent me on a flight to go home for two weeks. And then they Were gonna tell us what was gonna happen back to Alabama. Yes.

Mark Phillips [03:21:29] That's when they were, like, starting home mtc, like, on the fly, because, you know, they had no idea.

Zelle Phillips [03:21:34] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [03:21:34] So she left her mission, like, two days before, like, Covid hit the US and things started shutting down.

Carah Burrell [03:21:39] So just to be clear, because I'm dumb and I wanna make sure that I'm not misunderstanding, they thought in the Mexico. The Mexico mtc, like, district president, person who is in charge of you in the church. I don't know what the name is. Thought the best thing was to send them to your actual mission then.

Zelle Phillips [03:21:58] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [03:21:59] Well, Salt Lake is the one that buys the tickets, so it was probably a mess up from Salt Lake.

Zelle Phillips [03:22:05] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:22:05] So. So all the ticket. Everything is bought here and organized here.

Zelle Phillips [03:22:11] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:22:11] They just do whatever they tell them to do.

Carah Burrell [03:22:13] So Salt Lake was like, like, all right, we need to get the Mexico MTC missionaries home.

Gerardo Sumano [03:22:18] Yeah. I think they were just trying to bring them to the US before they

Zelle Phillips [03:22:22] closed the border mission.

Gerardo Sumano [03:22:23] Because they were. Yeah, the US Announced, like, oh, we're closing the border in this amount of time, and even if you are US Citizen, you won't be able to come back.

Carah Burrell [03:22:32] Right. And so that's why instead of sending you home, they could have bought you a ticket to send you back to Alabama, but they sent you to your actual mission.

Zelle Phillips [03:22:39] Yes, they sent us to our actual mission thinking that we would quarantine at our missions and then just go without training.

Gerardo Sumano [03:22:45] I think they were just trying to figure out.

Zelle Phillips [03:22:46] And then they were like, oh, that

Mark Phillips [03:22:48] was a bad idea. Things going on. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:22:50] Yeah. I would have really liked some prophetic leadership. Okay. So they started, what, like a home

Zelle Phillips [03:22:58] MTC a few days into my quarantine, which, by the way, while we were in quarantine, we were still missionary. So we're still under all of our mission rules while we were stuck at our houses, stuck in our bedrooms. Because we weren't allowed to leave the bedrooms for the two weeks, supposedly. Yes. I broke that rule.

Mark Phillips [03:23:16] We did not keep that. We took you hiking.

Zelle Phillips [03:23:18] Yes.

Mark Phillips [03:23:19] A week later.

Zelle Phillips [03:23:20] I know. And I'm glad for that because I had some friends who, like, their parents, like, freaked out. And Saran wrapped their door and kept them in the room, and we had a slit that they would slide their food under.

Gerardo Sumano [03:23:29] Oh, my gosh.

Zelle Phillips [03:23:30] No. Like, these missionaries were, like, it was so bad. A lot of us considered just leaving the mission. Like, there was a lot of us just talking about how this wasn't part of our plan. We were freaking out. And then we didn't know what was going to happen to us. And so finally. And so I kept calling my stake president at the time, and I just kept telling him that I was done. I had my chance. I'm ready to slay. I kept telling him I wanted to be released. He kept telling me he wouldn't release me because they want to see what's going to happen. And he wouldn't release me. Well, I cried and begged on the side of the phone for him to release me and abusive.

Carah Burrell [03:24:07] Honestly, no.

Zelle Phillips [03:24:08] I was wild. Upset greatly by this.

Gerardo Sumano [03:24:14] The mission structure is very

Zelle Phillips [03:24:18] rigid.

Gerardo Sumano [03:24:19] Rigid and how things work. So, for example, like, a mission president cannot just decide to send a mission home. He has to call the area presidency, get authorization from Salt Lake, and then everything has to work out so a missionary can be sent home, and the stake president back home has to agree. So when they send missionaries here with no. Like, there's no. Who has jurisdiction over you. I'm sure the stake president didn't know, and I'm not justifying what he did. But, like, the pre. But the. But the stake president probably didn't know, like, do I have the jurisdiction to just decide to release this missionary without, you know, Salt Lake's consent? So.

Zelle Phillips [03:25:06] Yeah, but it was a confusing time.

Gerardo Sumano [03:25:08] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:25:10] It always is weird to me, though, when you hear stories like this of somebody going through something on their mission, that if you're over the age of 18 and you have, like, the means to do so, that you can't get your butt home or you can't just be like. Like, I. I was a volunteer and now I rescind my volunteerism. Like that. That. It's not as easy as that. That's really freaky to me that the organization, the institution can have that kind of power over a grown adult. Like that.

Zelle Phillips [03:25:34] And that was something that I actually realized later, after I came home from my mission and thought more about it. I was like, that's actually really weird because I have, like, a lot of friends who are, like, you know, Baptist and stuff. And they go on church trips and it's like a fun time and stuff. And they're like, oh, yeah, we did this, this and this. And I'm like, oh, like, yeah, no, that's not how it was. I was like. I never realized how, like, weird it was, how intense the rules were until I was living it. And all sudden I, like, again thought that I felt like I was property and I was, like, freaked out by it.

Gerardo Sumano [03:26:03] Yeah.

Zelle Phillips [03:26:04] But, yeah. So then that led into my BYU I adventure because after that, like, everything was closed from COVID I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get a job or anything. And I was like, oh, no. I don't know what to do. And my friend was leaving to go up to byui. And I was like, at this point, I still was like.

Zelle Phillips [03:26:25] I was still, like, you know, pretty not. I wouldn't say strong in the church, but I still kind of, like, believed in the church. And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Like, enough that I would go to byui. And so I was like, okay, anything to get me, like, out and doing something. I need to do something to get my life going. Because I can't just be sitting here at. At home.

Zelle Phillips [03:26:44] And so three days after I was released, then my dad drove me and my friend up to byui. And I began taking classes there. Which led into some very interesting experiences. And the complete deconstruction of my faith

Carah Burrell [03:27:02] at the Lord's University.

Zelle Phillips [03:27:03] Oh, yeah, it happens.

Carah Burrell [03:27:06] First I hear about Gerardo living with a man. And now that this. So what were the. What were the classes that you took? And what were some of the messages that upset you that you didn't sit right with you?

Religion Classes, Endowments, and Deepening Doubts

Zelle Phillips [03:27:17] So I feel the major problem for any BYUI student, honestly, and member or not, is the religion classes. Those are always what gets you. They're good old classics. But my most honestly, like, just chain. Like, life. Not life changing, but like. Like emotionally, like, what changed me a lot towards the church and began the. Or like, really put the final blow in. Was my Eternal Families class my first semester. My teacher, she definitely took it a lot upon herself to give her own insight, as though it was doctrine. Which really started to disturb me. Because I noticed this in a lot of classes. Where teachers would just casually say things as though they were doctrine.

Zelle Phillips [03:28:03] When I was honestly a teacher's opinion. But she took it quite to extremes in a lot of cases. One of the big things that I remember was when we were doing our section on sexual purity. And, you know, we're talking about all the, you know, pretty regular things that they talk about in sexual purity. About, like, you know, not, like, having sex before marriage and not masturbating and, you know, all the normal stuff.

Mark Phillips [03:28:33] Stuff.

Zelle Phillips [03:28:34] But then she took it a step further and, as though it was doctrine, decided to tell this class full of very young and impressionable people. That even if you're married, if you have sex without praying and making it spiritual, then it is also a sin. Because there's a difference between spiritual sex and worldly sex.

Zelle Phillips [03:28:55] And that freaked me out. I was like, what? And so then obviously I'm looking around my class like, obviously, everybody else thinks she's a nutcase. Right. And these very young, like, you know, 18, 19 year olds are, like, nodding their heads are like, that makes sense. Like a married couple literally were like, oh, we're gonna. We're gonna try that now. And like, I started getting freaked out. I was like, okay, this is not it. And she just would continually just say, I can't. I wish I had more detail in it. Because she would just continually just say things that set off red alarms in my head.

Zelle Phillips [03:29:32] But everybody would act like it was normal and, like, people were coming forward with their lustful thoughts and they're like, oh, I. I like all these like, lustful thoughts. And they weren't even lustful really, but, like, you know, what they thought were lustful thoughts and thinking that they were sinners. And then she would be basically, like, telling them almost that, like, you know, oh, that is a problem. It's up to your spouse if they should marry you if you have those. I was like, okay, this is freaky. And how about.

Gerardo Sumano [03:30:03] Do you remember? So that. That class, I always like, I hated that class.

Zelle Phillips [03:30:08] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [03:30:09] And everyone has to take it like it's one of the requirements, mandatory.

Zelle Phillips [03:30:13] And

Gerardo Sumano [03:30:15] every friend that I had at byu, Idaho was. Was progressive, and they all hated that class.

Zelle Phillips [03:30:23] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [03:30:24] But there's two weeks about homosexuality where there's at least two weeks that you spend just talking about homosexuality and the church and the stance of the church.

Zelle Phillips [03:30:32] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [03:30:33] If you go to the manual that's on the church website, it's pretty conservative. Like, I would say, somewhat contradicting to what the website Mormons and Gays has just, like, is. I think in one of the classes they have the document that the First Presidency released right after marriage equality passed. And then you have to read it. It's. It's. It's kind of. It's pretty bad.

Zelle Phillips [03:31:03] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [03:31:03] But do you remember some, like, what kind of things your teacher would say about that? What were the thoughts of students?

Zelle Phillips [03:31:10] Yes. As somebody who is actually just starting to come to terms with the fact that I. I was like, at this point, I was starting to be like, oh, I think I actually am a lesbian. And like, okay, this was definitely very disheartening to hear all these people's just, like, blind opinions on the subject. I feel like. Yeah, a lot of it is. They always make it about sex, which is really just. I don't know, it's just kind of dehumanizing. To have an entire relationship be made on the base of, like, having sex.

Zelle Phillips [03:31:43] Because, I mean, there's so much more. Like, you're basically telling somebody it's not that they can't have sex, is that they can't have. Have a lifelong partner and they don't deserve to grow old with somebody or have a family or somebody to, like, live their life with. Like, it's so much more. But there's a. A lot of the classic takes of, well, they can't. Like, they're like, oh, well, you know, you can't procreate. And I was like.

Zelle Phillips [03:32:08] And that's always bothered me when people say, like, oh, well, it's against God's plan because you can't procreate in a, you know, non straight relationship. Like a LGBTQ plus relationship. But there's plenty of women who. Or men, honestly, who, like, you know, can't have kids.

Zelle Phillips [03:32:29] And. Are you saying that they can't get married? But as soon as you bring that up, because I even brought that up in class, I was like, oh, well, I have an aunt who can't have kids. So you're saying that she shouldn't be allowed to get married. They're like, what? Why would you say that? I was like, that's what you just said. Like, whoa.

Gerardo Sumano [03:32:46] But yeah, Or President Nelson. Right?

Mark Phillips [03:32:47] Like, each.

Gerardo Sumano [03:32:49] He's not pumping out kids with Wendy.

Zelle Phillips [03:32:51] Yeah, right, exactly.

Gerardo Sumano [03:32:53] Like, he was allowed to get married.

Zelle Phillips [03:32:55] Right. I'm like, so it's only okay if it's a man and a woman. It doesn't matter about their status of whether they can have kids or not or if they can't. Even if they can't have kids and they choose not to. That's a personal thing. But, you know, and that kind of bothered me. But then there was an example of. Actually, one of the kids in my class openly, like, was very openly gay. And he had mentioned. He was like, oh, well, you know, I struggled with it a lot. And obviously it was very. A little. It was sad because he's like, oh, I struggled with it, but I've just come to the conclusion, you know, that God loves me and I'll probably never get married, but I'm gonna remain.

Zelle Phillips [03:33:33] Remain faithful. And everybody's like, oh. And it was like, it was just the bad example. It was so sad because then they're like, oh, you see, it's possible. And they're like, oh, you're so brave. And, you know, who knows how many closeted kids are just sitting there. Yeah, you know, and you're just staring at the screen, you're like, oh, okay.

Zelle Phillips [03:33:52] Because, you know, they're the ones who are making the, like, not even seen as a, like, sacrifice, but they're the ones who are like, oh, they have the self control and stuff.

Mark Phillips [03:33:59] Stuff.

Zelle Phillips [03:33:59] And it's just not very fun to see or hear about because. Yeah, I just. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:34:06] And then they're kind of uses the example when other people are like, why can't you do it, though? Yeah, yeah, that guy did it. It's like, well, how long did he do it? What was his mental anguish? Like? How much suicidality did he have? How much depression is he struggling with? Is he actually living his life to the fullest? We don't know what's going on in his head, but externally he's getting a thumbs up from the church saying, keep at it, bro.

Zelle Phillips [03:34:28] It's that sacrificial lamb kind of like mentality almost where it's like the. Oh, yeah, I have to do that.

Carah Burrell [03:34:35] Right. So from that point, you were kind of able to. Were you feeling like you could get to a point where you could accept, like, that you were a lesbian and ready to come out?

Zelle Phillips [03:34:49] So that actually happened. So I had two roommates who went through endowments, and they actually got their endowments in the same week. So I had my roommate and I went to both the endowments because at this point I was still wearing my garments and also on side note, still struggling with eating and all that and my mental problems over wearing the garments. And so I went to not be understated. Like, yeah, that was.

Carah Burrell [03:35:14] That's rough.

Zelle Phillips [03:35:15] Yeah, I probably should have gone to therapy, but I was keeping that to myself. But yeah. And so I went to the first endowment session and I sat through. And this time I kind of. Because, you know, the first time it's really hard to kind of really take it all in and, like, understand. So this time when we went through, I like, really sat and listened because I was really, like, really decided I wanted to hear it and, like, really get it and make sure. So we listened through and I was like, okay. And I really, like. I really, like, pointed out the contradictions in my head and stuff.

Zelle Phillips [03:35:44] I was like, okay. It's like, that really doesn't make sense. And so then the second time, which is the last time I'll ever go through the temple in my life, I went through. And this is kind of where I finally made my break. And it was almost at, like, I would say, one of my lowest points mentally with everything, because this is Right at this, like, height of the stress, with the fact that I was a lesbian and the fact that I wanted to leave the church. Church, but I wasn't exactly sure, like, my thoughts on it. And I didn't want to, like, disappoint my family.

Zelle Phillips [03:36:17] And I didn't want to, like, be, like, disowned basically, from, like, this whole network of people I'd grown up with, growing up, like, you know, with all these, like, people. Because I'd basically grown up mainly in one ward. So, like, you know, you become very close with the ward. And I knew what war, the ward members said about people who left the church sometimes. And, like, you know, it was always that, the. Oh, that's too bad about that. And, you know, so I. I knew what would be said and how, you know, I would be like the tragedy, the fallen child.

Zelle Phillips [03:36:47] And so I was sitting in the temple and we were about to get to the last part, and I just remember, and this sounds very dramatic, which it was low key kind of dramatic, but that's who I am. I just remember, like, sitting there and like, finally it, like, hit me that I would rather go to, like, basically in my head, hell than not, like, then live the way I had been living.

Zelle Phillips [03:37:19] And I was like, you know what? In the end, I was like, you know, this could either be true or, all right, like, you know, I'd rather, like, risk going to hell than living my life like that and living a lie, not knowing, like, whether it was, like, true or not. And, like, risking it my whole life for something that might not even be real. And I, like, had, like, a little silent tear that rolled down my face. And I kind of. I'm not gonna lie for a minute there. It did break something inside me. The fact that, like, you know, I was like. I think I was 19 years old and I had to, like, come to the conclusion that I'd rather go to hell.

Zelle Phillips [03:37:55] And that's just a very dark time for a little. And the next day I took off my garments and I never wore them again. And from there, everything started going up because I started to come to, like, a piece and realizing. And I mean, it was still kind of hard because, you know, you're like, basically having to give up ever. Like, because I came to the conclusion personally that for me, the church was not healthy for me mentally or physically or anything. And so it was easier for me personally, which I don't judge anybody who's in the church and all that, but it was personally easily easier for me to just decide that the church wasn't true at all and that I basically kind of lost, like, everything that I'd been, like, almost, like, living for.

Zelle Phillips [03:38:46] No, Known for, like, my whole life. When I decided to leave the church, because I was like, I'm basically going into the unknown, and I didn't have a concept of, like, what would happen after I die. I didn't know a lot of things. I didn't actually care so much about, not, like, not having a purpose, because I honestly have always thought that the purpose of life is to live it. So I never, like, got weird about that, but it was kind of scary for me not knowing where I'd go when I died. But I've come to peace with all that, but a big part of coming to peace with a lot of things.

Zelle Phillips [03:39:17] So I actually ended up coming out to my parents, and obviously, that went over very smoothly. But then I also ended up telling my mom about the fact that I wasn't gonna be a member anymore. And then it turned out that they were all on the same page.

Mark Phillips [03:39:32] Wow.

Zelle Phillips [03:39:33] And, yeah, that worked out. But a big thing for me that helped me, I feel, like, kind of heal and realize that there was a life outside the church and that I could, like, be myself and have, like, you know, live a normal life and be happy. And I honestly found that I was happier without the church was. I worked at a summer camp this summer in Pennsylvania for nine weeks. I lived there with a bunch of other camp counselors. And I'm not gonna lie, I think 75 of the camp was LGBTQ plus. We had a little bit of everything, and I was able to, for the first time in my life, like, go out and just be, like, completely.

Zelle Phillips [03:40:11] Like, I wasn't a member or anything. So I got to, like, have a clean slate and just be me. And I was, you know, open, and I was, you know, I, like, met girls, and I had to, like, I had a normal flirting life. For once in my life, I could. I found out I do know how to flirt, and I'm actually really good at it. I just was not flirting with the right people, and I didn't know how to flirt with men. But, no, it turns out, yeah. And I just got to live, like, a normal, free. Like, there's a lot of stress in the summer camp that was separate, but, like, emotionally, I got to live, like, a normal, free, like, life for once.

Zelle Phillips [03:40:43] And I could wear shorts and tank tops, and I could. I could drink an out. Like, I could drink a drink at a party and, like, just all sorts of things. And it really just like made me see the future. And that's actually when I decided that I needed to drop out of BYUI and just live a normal life without anything of the church touching me.

Carah Burrell [03:41:05] So I'm really glad that you brought up your summer camp experience. I'm glad I saw that in your outline. I didn't want to miss that because I also worked at a summer camp when I was 19, but I was still a little bit Mormon and I, I was. When you talked about, you know, having kind of mark going out and having an experience where you're kind of shocked that people who are really good people, like at Baylor, they're like, they're drinking and they're, they're swearing, but they're still so intelligent. I had a huge wake up call when I was 19, working at a summer camp camp in Massachusetts.

Carah Burrell [03:41:35] And I was able to for the first time realize, you know, there's a world bigger outside of Mormonism where people are still hard working, intelligent, they're on the LGBTQ spectrum of different possibilities were open to me. And that must have been a really fun experience.

Carah Burrell [03:41:52] And was it like you said, nine week camp? Mine was like a ten week camp as well. You're living with people in intense, becoming friends with them.

Zelle Phillips [03:41:59] Yes.

Carah Burrell [03:42:00] That your, your entire mind can, can change over the course of 10 weeks. Was that kind of your experience?

Zelle Phillips [03:42:05] Yes, it was just, yeah. Really just eye opening. The fact that I could live a normal life and people weren't gonna hate me or like anything. And honestly, they were very supportive of, like, you know, when I'd start to talk about like my experiences and stuff. And, you know, I was kind. I, you know, I started eating again. I came back to a healthy weight for the first time and a hot minute. I had friends who helped with that because. Yeah, and we all just, I don't know, it was just great to like, be able to live in such like, I don't know, peaceful bubble of just with these people.

Zelle Phillips [03:42:40] And then coming home for the summer for a little bit before I went back to byui, I was able to like, be back home but still be like open and like, you know, wear what I wanted to wear. And we went to Pride, and it was my first pride and everybody was really supportive of everything.

Zelle Phillips [03:42:57] And then of course, it was pretty tough to go just at the beginning of the semester back to BYUI and have to remember to kind of be quiet again. But that's all over now, so.

Carah Burrell [03:43:09] Say that again. Sorry.

Zelle Phillips [03:43:10] Oh, I said, but that's all Over. Now I'm gone. So I'll never have to do that again.

Carah Burrell [03:43:13] Yeah. So for how long did you have to go back to BYU?

Zelle Phillips [03:43:17] Just one semester. I came back for fall semester.

Carah Burrell [03:43:21] Yeah. And then you just packed up your stuff this December?

Zelle Phillips [03:43:23] Yep. Just a few days ago. And I'm out. Yep. Yep.

Carah Burrell [03:43:27] Wow.

Zelle Phillips [03:43:28] Wow.

Carah Burrell [03:43:29] So going and having, like, a very freeing experience working at a summer camp to going back to very conservative Mormon University, following all of the honor code rules.

Zelle Phillips [03:43:39] I definitely was a different person at BYUI this semester than I'd ever been. I'll give myself that. Got my nose pierced. I didn't go to church at all. I was definitely a rebel. I may have cursed more than I should have at byui, but that's how it went.

Carah Burrell [03:43:58] More than.

Zelle Phillips [03:43:59] I didn't fill up your two hands, though. Oh, yeah. I. I curse like a sailor. Now, that started a camp.

Carah Burrell [03:44:06] Damn straight. So you got back, you were able to at least kind of attend Pride, feel like you. Like you could be more out and that your family was accepting, your friends were accepting. So take us through kind of how your family converged. You said that when you came out that they were already kind of on the same page, ready to leave. So tell me about that conversation of you coming out and how that went down.

Coming Out and the Family's Response

Zelle Phillips [03:44:30] So I. So I don't have a car up at byui, so I walk to work, and I usually call one of my parents when I'm walking to work just to talk to them because it's kind of a long walk, so it's kind of boring sometimes. And I had been kind of stressed about telling my parents for, you know, it was all in my head. Like, I knew that they were going to be fine with it. Like, I kept even telling my friend. I was like, I know that they're not going to care, but, like, I just could not bring myself to do it because it just felt like a letdown.

Zelle Phillips [03:44:57] But turned out it wasn't. It was fine. But, yeah. And so I'd been, like, kind of, like, really anxious for the few weeks leading up to it. So I kept, like, calling them at weird times. And then I wouldn't say why I was calling them. I just kept saying I was anxious. I was like, oh, I'm anxious. But they'd be like, oh, why are you anxious? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm just anxious. But I knew exactly why I was anxious. But, yeah. And so then I ended up, finally, I was calling mom and we were talking about something or another she brought up something about missions, and I was like, I don't know.

Zelle Phillips [03:45:28] I just kind of, like, finally broke down. I was like, mom, I went on my mission because I like girls. And then I started crying, and then I hung up, but. And then she texted me, and she was like, oh, she's like, that's okay, and stuff. And then I called her on my way home, and we talked a little bit, and she's like, actually, that makes a lot of sense because, you know, and then just various dating experiences and just other things and how I just obviously was not in any way interested in boys, really, when it came to a lot of things, and just all sorts of things.

Zelle Phillips [03:45:58] And she's like, no, that makes sense. And it was very validating. And then I think the next day then you called me, and I cried because. Yeah. And then basically, dad just told me that, like, it was okay and that, you know, he brought up the Simpsons, and he's like, oh, that was so funny. What's his name? You're like, don't you remember what Mr. Smithers is? And I was like, a burnosexual, because he only likes Mr. Burns. He's like, so you. You see, it can be any, like. And then. Yeah, that was funny.

Carah Burrell [03:46:33] Adorable. Yeah. I feel so much connection already. I know it's not a good interview technique to talk about yourself in an interview, but I don't care. We're gonna do it anyway. That's okay. We both got let down by ilp. Yeah. Same. Both worked at a summer camp. Both were nannies, and both our lives are Simpsons references. So I think of everything in a Simpsons reference.

Zelle Phillips [03:46:56] There you go. So.

Carah Burrell [03:46:58] So how was that, Mark, to have your daughter come out and. Sounds like you were. Had already kind of been through that once with Luca.

Mark Phillips [03:47:07] Yeah.

Zelle Phillips [03:47:08] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:47:08] And you're able to be a lot more understanding this time, I guess.

Gerardo Sumano [03:47:12] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [03:47:12] Yeah, I think so. Definitely. So, yeah, there. At that point. Yeah, at this point. I mean, that was. That was not a concern, like, it wasn't a worry or a concern, like, in any bit. It was just, like, I was glad that she was able to. To feel like, you know, to understand her own self and. And know who she was and be able to.

Mark Phillips [03:47:32] To talk to us about it and. And just that she was able to. To feel, you know, I just wanted to make sure that she felt, you know, accepted and. And, you know. So, yeah, it was. It was. Yeah, it was great. I mean, my wife told me that night and the next day. Yeah, I just, like, called her up in the morning when I thought you'd be up and. And I was like, hey, yeah, how's it going? And just, you know, I just, just kind of pretty. I think pretty quickly went right into it and it was like, hey, that's, that's, that's great. That's, you know, glad you figured that out and, and if that's, you know, that's going to be fine.

Carah Burrell [03:48:04] But for you, Zelle, what is it like to be holding that secret that you think is going to send you to hell? What is it like holding that and that, carrying that burden, going on a mission, going through all of this for this eternal family. What is it like to carry that for 19, 20 years?

Zelle Phillips [03:48:19] Yeah, that was a lot. I felt a lot of stuff. Yeah, I felt mostly it was pretty. I had always been a very, like, happy and light person, I feel like. So it was definitely new to me to feel such like, definitely sat, like dark sadness. I never really experienced that until I was up at, like, it started like at the end of my mission and up at byui. It was definitely a lot and it had. Yeah, it made me kind of just understand that that's really hard for a lot of people who have to constantly struggle with it.

Zelle Phillips [03:49:03] But just, I don't know, carrying that secret, it was just, just. It was just a burden, basically. Like, honestly, it was just. I felt very, like, alone and just. You just feel like you're crazy and you're alone and you're like, oh my gosh, nobody knows what's going on, but you don't want to tell anybody.

Zelle Phillips [03:49:25] And I had written in my last journal entry that I wrote at the. The last journal. So I used to write. So the whole. These journal entries that I keep referring to, I started them when I was 12. And they're to.

Zelle Phillips [03:49:42] Funny enough, they're my future husband letters. I write Dear Future Husband at the beginning of each one. And I use them basically as a journal. But it all started because of young women's. And so I would write once a month to my future husband and I would just write. And I'd write them as like, letters, basically because it helped me to feel like I was addressing somebody rather than just writing down. And in my last letter that I wrote, wrote it just at the bottom is. Or at the top of. Instead of the iconic Dear Future Husband that I would always write, it just says, hey, buddy.

Zelle Phillips [03:50:16] I was like, things are getting a little crazy here. I was like. And so then I kind of there at the end. I actually cried when I read it because it was just. It was right there at the, like, begin. Like the end in the beginning, like the end of the torment, but then also just a lot of things, because I literally. I wrote. I don't know how I'm gonna break.

Zelle Phillips [03:50:36] Break it to my parents up the first 20 years of my life was my gift to them, but I have to live for myself now. And I was like, as honest as I've always been in these letters, I never wrote, like, I've never written in full honesty the torment I've been in my entire life regarding, like.

Zelle Phillips [03:50:53] Regarding my personal, like, thought. And I just, like. It was just. It was just pretty tragic. But it. After that, things started looking up and I was like, you know, I don't know where, because I always would write about how I was going to find them. I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna find them, and I don't know what you're gonna find when you find me, but I don't think you're gonna be my husband anymore. And then I. I did that. And so that was kind of my goodbye to, like, my future family, basically. There's a bit more to it, obviously, but basically that was kind of me ending that.

Zelle Phillips [03:51:26] That portion of my life that had been so obsessed with the idea of, like, my future family and all this weirdness that I pinned on it. And that was kind of like, I don't know, opening a new chapter. Because after that, I, you know, came out and, like, everything is, you know, changed from then.

Carah Burrell [03:51:42] Wow. And so during this time, like, I guess you guys would have had to tell your family, your church or the ward members that you won't be attending anymore, and, you know, going through the process of. I don't know if you want to speak for your wife or if you guys are on the same page, but you can go through kind of how you as a family were able to take a step back from the church and how, whatever that entailed, taking off your garments, if you want to talk about that.

Leaving the Church and Life After Mormonism

Mark Phillips [03:52:09] Yeah, sure. Yeah, that. So that's what. Yeah, we. We had started unina, and I finally started talking about our, you know, our concerns about the church there. That. That, you know. What was it a year ago? Christmas. Really? Yeah. Right.

Zelle Phillips [03:52:24] Yeah, it was right around this time last year.

Mark Phillips [03:52:26] No, well, it would have been the summer before. Right. Oh, well, that's right after dropping you off. So we took that slow for the first few months because it was coming on a little faster for Janina than it was for me because I had Been processing this for a while, and even though she had concerns about the church, you know, when we had our first conversation, and I just frankly said, you know, I just don't think the church is true. And that resonated with her, but it was really scary. And I said, I'm not saying we should leave the church. And me just uttering the words leave the church, like, scared her.

Mark Phillips [03:53:00] She's like, I just need to think about this for a while. So we took it really slowly for a few months until probably about Christmas time, and we started talking more and she started reading some things and, you know, CES letter and. And some rough stone rolling and some different things.

Mark Phillips [03:53:15] But, yeah, by that spring where you had come out, and as we got closer to that spring, you know, Yanina became kind of anxious to leave the church. She felt more so than I did because it came on. Well, maybe before, whatever reason, she felt betrayed by the church. More than lied to betrayed.

Zelle Phillips [03:53:36] She relied heavily on the church and took.

Mark Phillips [03:53:38] Took, took, took that. You know, kind of took more offense to that, essentially. You know, I mean, like, she was upset. And so we were. I was serving as elders quorum president still. I'd been elders quorum president for a year now, and. And I. I loved. I like serving people. So, I mean, I organized. You know, we had hurricane cleanups down in. In Florida and South Alabama a year ago in the fall and different things and helping people. We had winds that came down, knocked down trees around our. In. Our neighbors, went and chopped up trees, did things like that. So I'm happy to serve people, but it was torture to some degree for the last while, going to ward council meetings and things like that, and hearing talk about, like, how do we increase temple work and what do we do about missionary work and stuff like that.

Mark Phillips [03:54:26] I'm just like, I don't care. Like, I don't care. I don't want. I don't. I don't want to do missionary work. I don't. You know. But, yeah, as we got to the spring, we started talking about that. We started making plans, and I guess that was about the time that all happened. And we'd been talking about it when you talked when you. I guess, totally came out.

Mark Phillips [03:54:46] And we were. And so, yeah, we had a family reunion in June. So we decided we wouldn't come out to our family until after the family reunion because we just didn't want to disrupt everybody. And, I don't know, we didn't want that to be the focus of the family reunion. Like, oh, Mark's family's leaving the church.

Mark Phillips [03:55:13] But I think before that, though, we made a plan, and we said, okay, we're going to talk to the bishop. And that was partly precipitated. We knew we were going to do it at some point, but then they went to issue Yanina a calling, and they issued her a calling, and she's like, let me think about that. And then we got with. And he was really surprised because it was a simple. It was like girls camp helper or something. You know, it was simple arts and crafts. Yeah.

Mark Phillips [03:55:39] And she said, well, let me think about it. The bishop was a little bit taken back by that because we're like. We're like, yes, yes, yes, do everything. And so then I made an appointment with the bishop, and we went in, and I had kind of thought about what I would say and how to.

Mark Phillips [03:55:53] Because I like to talk about lots of things and everything, but I can have a hard time, like, broaching an issue with somebody that's uncomfortable, like, in my personal life, and which. That became a pattern for the next couple of months coming out to my family. But I came up with this kind of sentence in my head, if I can. That was basically to say, yanina and I have serious concerns about the current direction and past history of the church. And that was like my break the wall sentence. So we came in and we shook hands with the bishop and stuff like that, and he was a little curious, like, why we were asking to talk to him as Elders Quorum president and, you know, this former primary president and Relief Society president and stuff like that, and he's a young man who was a fairly new bishop at the time.

Mark Phillips [03:56:38] I felt bad for him. I was friends with him, but we said that. And then we went on and talked for, like, two hours. And, you know, he kind of wanted to know why and where we were at. And. And so we. Yeah, we talked for, like, two hours. And he respected our decision. He was very respectful of us.

Mark Phillips [03:56:57] He said, I'll need to probably let the stake president know about this. And, I mean, I said, I've never asked to be released from a calling in my life, but I'm letting you know that if I were you as bishop, you probably want someone else as Elders Quorum president at this point. And he's kind of like, yeah, so I'll talk to the stake president. So a few days later, I got a call from the stake president. We set up and did. Basically, it was just me. We didn't need women in that meeting.

Gerardo Sumano [03:57:20] So

Mark Phillips [03:57:22] I met with the Stake President said the same thing. And we talked, and the bishop really gave no pushback or didn't really try to defend the church at all. He was basically, okay, this is what you guys have figured out for yourselves. I accept that. The Stake President's only thing was basically he said, you know, I guess for me, speaking for him, I come back to that. When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel good. He's like, don't you feel good when you read the Book of Mormon?

Mark Phillips [03:57:50] I said, well, actually, I've always really liked the New Testament. That was kind of my reply. And I've read the Book of Mormon at least eight times, so I think I know the book pretty good. And I just, at this point, was not convinced anymore. And after looking at archeology and things like that. And so I went into all those things, and to some degree, probably more than I needed to, sometimes I can.

Mark Phillips [03:58:11] When I get started, it's hard to stop because there's just so much in there. But so, yeah, and we did that. And then we went through talking to my family members in different ways. Both my brothers, in one way or the other, called me one brother because his daughter had. Had talked. My niece had talked to Zelle, and the daughter had kind of inadvertently outed us. And he's like, this is what my daughter said. Like, is this right? Because last I knew, you were Elders Quorum President. I was like, well, actually went through the story with him, my other brother. He was our High councilman at the time for my ward.

Mark Phillips [03:58:48] He was in another ward. So he knew that we had stopped coming to church. And so he called me. He's like, like, what are you guys doing? And so I told him. He thought we were just worried about COVID but so I told him. Great excuse, right? It was. And it was. It was helpful for our whole separate. The whole process, definitely, I think.

Mark Phillips [03:59:07] But yeah, and. And then the hardest thing was my dad. My wife is pretty close to my mom, and. And she was getting impatient with me because I was being slow. And she's like, you know, if you don't care, I'll just talk to your mom. I don't feel bad about that. I think she kind of suspects it. It's kind of like what she was. And no, my mom did not suspect it. And my mom was. Was kind of floored by it.

Mark Phillips [03:59:29] And. But she did. She did accept it, and everybody's been generally supportive. I finally set up a lunch with my dad, and we ended up picking up Thai food and sitting by on a picnic table by a lake near their house.

Mark Phillips [03:59:44] And, you know, I actually trying to figure out how to broach it with my dad because I talked to my dad a lot and I just, it was so awkward. I actually had the week before, watched John's YouTube, his TED Talk, YouTube about being an LGBTQ ally.

Mark Phillips [04:00:02] And so I used something from that to kind of start off and say, you know, and kind of use the example of the priesthood and temple ban and said, you know, we've made the decision that we're going to stand up, up, you know, and say we don't accept this.

Mark Phillips [04:00:19] And of course they knew our one child was LGBTQ already. And during that time, different people were finding out that Zelle was lesbian. And so, yeah, so we ended up having a two hour talk and we've had another couple hour talk since then, me and my dad.

Mark Phillips [04:00:39] And so it's been interesting. We've got, generally, we've gotten fairly little blowback from it, but at the same time, and we're just, you know, that all happened just a couple of months ago now. I found, you know, it's like my family, they talked to me about it and now they want to be done and just sweep it under the rug and not talk anymore. So I think, you know, it's still yet to be seen.

Mark Phillips [04:01:00] Now I'll say my one brother, who I'm staying with right now in Brigham City, has been an exception to that. He reads a lot of church history. He's very secure where he's at, but he understands a lot of the problems in the church. I mean, he's definitely, he's a faithful member, but he understands a lot of the problems and concerns and can see and at least tells me, and I believe him that he can understand why we made the decision that we did.

Mark Phillips [04:01:23] And, you know, so after once I told my dad we hadn't been going to church for probably three months at this point. And I had just been, I had been released as Elders Quorum president the last Sunday we went to church. That was the last Sunday I was released as Elders Quorum president. And the new Elders Quorum president stood up and he'd been a bishop in that ward before now that high priests can be Elders Quorum president. Didn't know if you know that.

Mark Phillips [04:01:48] And he actually said some really nice things about me. And the second hour they had a special speaker from the high council talk about missionary work. And I can't remember if I sat in for the first minute or two or it was, I think I may have sat in for. And he started talking and I was like, I just can't sit through this. And I stood up and I went into the foyer and sat down and talked with somebody on the couch. And we went home and we hadn't come back. And I guess taking off.

Mark Phillips [04:02:19] When I was released by the stake president the week before that. No. Yeah, the week before that as eldersborne president, when I was released as stake president, I went home and. And took off my garments and we went shopping and got new underwear. You know, immediately.

Carah Burrell [04:02:35] Both liberating.

Mark Phillips [04:02:36] Yeah. How did it feel? Yeah, good.

Carah Burrell [04:02:39] Fabric freedom.

Mark Phillips [04:02:41] Yeah. No, and it was an interesting thing because there are one or two things in like the month after that. Like, I knew I was going to something and I thought, well, somebody might see through my shirt or something like that. And I was like, slightly like, considered like, should I wear my garments for this? But then I just, I was like, no, they're never going to back on. Never.

Mark Phillips [04:03:00] It's not going to happen. And so. And yeah, it has been good. And we. So after that, I hadn't been going to church about three months. I decided to make a Facebook post. And luckily I had a few people reach out to me. My former, the former, the bishop that I served with for five years, he reached out to me and we went to lunch and we had a two hour conversation. And I would say that we agreed on 90%. I mean, you know, it's. It's so interesting how many people I talk to, how many people are nuanced that don't really make that public.

Mark Phillips [04:03:31] And so I wrote up a post on Facebook and just said, the people who have known me my whole life, anyone who's known me knows I've been LDS my whole life, basically, and our family, and use that same line, I think that. And I have. Have some serious concerns about the current direction and the past history of the LDS Church. And then I went in and I said, okay, on the current direction. And I addressed LGBT issues. And I just said, you know, we don't agree with that. We think that God loves LGBTQ people. We believe that God loves LGBTQ marriages.

Mark Phillips [04:04:11] So anyways, and then I went on just to do a brief little spiel about church history. And I said, you know, I've loved history my whole life, but in studying history over the last few years, I've realized that the history I've taught of the church was sugarcoated, it was redacted, it was incomplete.

Mark Phillips [04:04:32] And as I've dug into it, what I found is not what I believe. To be the work of God, and I just kind of left it at that. And I'm not an influencer by any means. I have, like five or six hundred Facebook friends from just having lived all around the country, and I have never. I've never had a. I've never had a post that I had over 100 comments on, but 95% of them, 99%, maybe, I mean, were positive. So all my grad school friends that were still on there were like, oh, my gosh, I'm so proud of you. And all my LGBTQ friends, a couple of them made really nice comments. And. And anyway. And is that post public that if

Carah Burrell [04:05:15] you wanted to go find it, they could?

Mark Phillips [04:05:17] Yeah, I made that public, and I shared that with John when I first messaged him on Facebook. Like, I just, you know, kind of said, hey, told a little bit about myself. And I made this post, and it queued for like a week or two, just like a little mini tsunami of texts and phone calls.

Mark Phillips [04:05:40] All of them, except for two comments from two former missionary companions in my mission who are in El Salvador and Guatemala who are like, dude, are you serious? You know, just kind of. Other than that, everything was supportive. And so many people who were people we've known in the past who had already left the church and people in our ward who had left the church and people who then kind of privately messaging us who were having doubts and concerns about the church. And I ended up, you know, for like, the next three weeks being like, booked on my Fridays for lunch with different people who just, like, wanted to talk and then had a former bishop who's African American to call me.

Mark Phillips [04:06:19] And I looked at the phone, I'm like, is he calling to ball me out or is he calling to, you know, because he was my bishop, he's only five or six years younger than or older than me. He was my bishop in the Birmingham Third Ward, which when they made that eventually into a ward and pulled in some of the college students run around the UAB area, and we were in that ward with him, and he said, hey, I read your post, man. I was blown away by it. But, man, I gotta tell you, I'm having a lot of concerns myself.

Mark Phillips [04:06:47] And he hadn't been to church. He'd been to church, I think he said, twice in the last year. And he said he had some siblings who are also been long time serving as high councilmen. I mean, he'd been a bishop. You know, things like. He said, my brothers, his two siblings, they've been sending me stuff like, they've got real serious concerns. And he said, well, I read you. Your post is like, I know you. And I just, I've been hearing from them. I wanted to kind of get your perspective. And we've talked a couple of times for, you know, for several hours

Carah Burrell [04:07:17] because they looked up to you. Sounds like that you were like an awesome baptizer on your mission, super faithful, serving in all these callings. And so if Mark is having doubts and concerns about the history of the church and the where the church is moving forward from here, like they want to pick your brain and maybe feel some validation on their own concerns, is that.

Mark Phillips [04:07:35] Yeah, I think so. Because. And that's why I wanted to make it public is like, I'm sick of people just melting away and there being rumors about why did this family not come? Why don't this, you know, I think they had a gay son. We had a family like that that was very active in our ward that they just kind of slipped off and nobody hardly talked about it. And we kind of knew they had a son who was gay.

Mark Phillips [04:07:55] And my wife actually reached out to that sister before, you know, during our faith transition and talk to her a little bit. But yeah, so that's why I wanted to put it out there, because I'm not, you know, I know that we're well regarded within the Birmingham Mormon community. My family is very well known.

Mark Phillips [04:08:15] I mean, my dad's been in temple presidencies and mission presidencies and things like that. And I've got, you know, I've been a branch. Well, I've been in the bishopric. I've got. Brother in law has been a branch president. Brother in law who's been a bishop. My brother, one brother was recently called as bishop.

Mark Phillips [04:08:32] So. So yeah, so we're. We're kind of one of the major families in the Birmingham and Bessemer stakes in, in that part. So I felt it was important for people to know, you know, that people, other people are having concerns and doubts.

Carah Burrell [04:08:46] Right.

Mark Phillips [04:08:47] And, and, and the response we got would indicate a lot of people needed to, you know, to hear that and it was helpful to them.

Carah Burrell [04:08:53] Yeah, because you'll hear all the time, whether it's on Reddit or all. I mean, every platform, when somebody loses their faith, the first thing they think is, do I need to tell people? Should I tell people on Facebook? When should I tell people? How should I do it? And maybe that's a lot of reason. People tune into Mormon stories to hear a story about how it all unfolded. So I think that's a really good positive boon to that, that you. You went out there, you put yourself out there, there. It's a super personal thing. Unfortunately, we're in a religion that is not so personal. It also has a lot of, you know, outside factors and, you know, your interactions with other people.

Carah Burrell [04:09:28] So if you wish you could sometimes lose your faith and slip away quietly, sometimes you can't quite leave the church and leave it alone, that you still have to kind of speak your piece about what doesn't sit right with you and letting people hear what you have to say and validate other people's concerns. And so. So from making a Facebook post like that, what's your advice? Or it sounds like it went over well. If anyone's listening and thinking that they want to also kind of share their truth about where they landed with their faith journey, what advice would you have to say for that?

Mark Phillips [04:09:58] Yeah, I mean, I, like, I tried to keep it. I mean, it was. It was a somewhat long post, but I tried to keep it fairly simple. I tried to not go into details,

Carah Burrell [04:10:06] just the backfire effects or something.

Mark Phillips [04:10:08] Right. Yeah, Yeah, I wasn't attacking. Yeah, I wasn't attacking anybody. In fact, I did, you know, I did, you know, I complimented the members of the ward. I said, you know, I've talked to, the few people that I've been talking to in the ward, say people are just wondering where we're at. I haven't heard any negative rumors about us. And I thanked our ward for that. I said, but I thought you deserve to know. And I wrote it out. And afterwards I just said, we still love our Mormon family and friends.

Mark Phillips [04:10:34] And I said, in our case, you know, that we still believe in God and that we're trying to follow the example of Jesus, and that's what we feel like we're doing in our view. And I said, to serve others and to.

Mark Phillips [04:10:51] I can't remember exactly what I put, but I was trying to follow the example, to serve others. And I ended it with a new phrase that we've learned from the Episcopal Church that we've started attending, which is to make no peace with oppression.

Mark Phillips [04:11:03] Which to us, the first time the priest said that at the end of their service, as he sent us out, as they do in their services, to send you out to the world to be the hands and feet of Christ. And he says, and to make no peace with oppression.

Mark Phillips [04:11:18] And the first time, you and I both, we just looked at each other and we're like, yes. And that's how we knew the Episcopal Church No, I'm just kidding. No, we don't think the Episcopal Church is the true church church. So. But we think it's a good place for us. And. And the cool thing is, and some LDS folks may not know this, but there's a lot of churches out there that actually don't claim to be the one true church of God. They. They. They claim to be a collection of believers who are trying to do their best while stumbling along the way to. To follow what they understand to be the teachings of Jesus. And that's. That's what we're trying to do.

Carah Burrell [04:11:52] Yeah. That's beautiful. Make no peace with oppression.

Mark Phillips [04:11:55] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:11:56] If I heard that in a Mormon church church, I'd be like, amen. But if I heard it in Episcopal Church, I'd also be like, amen. Whoever's saying it just sounds like something that's true and that Jesus, whether he's God or not, that's something that he would be for and would want his disciples, his followers, to strive for.

Mark Phillips [04:12:14] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:12:15] Yeah. That's beautiful. So are you ready to kind of tell us where you've landed? Like, you said that you are not like a strict Christian in that way, but you still attend this church because you want to be with other people striving to do better. So.

Mark Phillips [04:12:28] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:12:28] Why don't you, Ansel, both kind of like, as we're wrapping up, tell us where you've landed with your beliefs and what you're looking forward to in the future.

Mark Phillips [04:12:35] Yeah.

Zelle Phillips [04:12:37] First, either way.

Carah Burrell [04:12:38] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [04:12:41] Yeah.

Mark Phillips [04:12:41] So that's, you know, we. We do. You know, we. We do value a lot of things in our Mormon experience, certainly. And we value, you know, the community, and so was one thing, definitely. And we value some of what we view as the positive teachings to help others, to serve others, and we think those are good things. So, yeah, we looked around a little bit at different churches. We read online, different things, and we have a little Methodist church down the road from us that we have had friends there. They do a little farmer's market in the summer. So we've interacted with them a lot over the years.

Mark Phillips [04:13:15] We went to that church a little bit. But when we looked at it, we decided the Methodists are still trying to figure out LGBTQ issues. They still don't allow gay priests. They still don't endorse gay weddings. We're not going to leave one church over LGBTQ issues and then join another one that hadn't figured out. So we also had kind of read about the Episcopal Church, and I'll be the first to say what I knew of the Episcopal Church was that they have a ridiculous history, that they're a church church that started. It's the Church of England, so it's the American Church of England, the Anglican Church.

Mark Phillips [04:13:50] They started because King Henry VIII wanted a divorce and the Pope wouldn't give it to him back in the 1300s. But that's not what I'm there for. I'm not there because Henry VIII was inspired. I don't believe that. And no Episcopal believes that, that I know of.

Mark Phillips [04:14:07] But what we found, what we like about it, is that one of their core principles is reason. And so it allows them. It has allowed them for the last, whatever, five, six hundred years of their existence, to change and evolve with the times.

Mark Phillips [04:14:25] They view their three core principles, from what I understand, as reason, as tradition, and as scripture. So tradition, though, that means that you can do something that looks like a Catholic Mass, but you don't have to think that every part of it is some sacrosanct thing. You could say, this is a beautiful tradition, and every part of it doesn't have to have meaning, or different parts can have different meaning to different people. And they overtly say this. I mean, they teach people that you can think differently.

Mark Phillips [04:14:52] And then scripture is. They recognize the Bible, but again, they don't take it as an inerrant book, generally speaking, they do leave room for people who want to take it that way, but very few, from what we've learned, Episcopals, no one that we've met, that takes the Bible as an inerrant book. And you'll be able to look at it as the way I look at the Bible is as a historical document, and that should be examined as such in the sense that we can look at good biblical scholarship. And I go with what those people have figured out, okay? I look at the Old Testament and I say, yeah, most of that probably never happened, okay?

Mark Phillips [04:15:32] Like, there probably was never a Noah, there probably was never a Abraham, or at least, you know, we certainly don't have quotes from these people. You know, that these were probably oral traditions that were passed down for hundreds of years and that eventually, you know, they were written down as an origin myth of the Jewish people. And who knows, maybe there was someone like Abraham, and maybe somehow some of the story got passed down.

Mark Phillips [04:15:54] Maybe there was, you know, some farmer out there that it started raining real hard and he put some of his livestock onto a barge and he was able to survive that local flood. And then his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren passed down this story. And pretty soon you got Noah. You know, I mean, that's the way I kind of look at it, you know, I mean, I look at, you know, the Garden of Eden as an allegory. I mean, you know, so I, so that's the way I look at the Old Testament. I look at the New Testament again to take it for what it can give us historically, we can know about it.

Mark Phillips [04:16:25] I know, you know, probably Matthew didn't write Matthew. Maybe it was written by a follower of his or something, you know, a hundred years ago, years later. Then maybe There are certain things, Paul, some of the epistles of Paul, I think can be dated to within 30 years of the death of Christ or something. So I think to me there's enough there to suggest there's historicity to it.

Mark Phillips [04:16:47] But everything in there we need to take through the filter of what have these things gone through to get to us today. And so I believe there was a historic Jesus. And from what I can understand of him and what's been written down, I think he was a great teacher and a great person. And he taught some wonderful things that I think are beneficial to my life to try to emulate.

Mark Phillips [04:17:14] And then you get to where the step of faith can come in. Then I am hopeful. I would, I would. I'm hopeful that there's a God. I don't pretend to know whether there's a God or not. I look around the world and I see how many people believe in some form of a God or higher power. And to me that's somewhat an indication that there's some reasoning behind that I could be wrong, you know, but, but, but, but. So I consider, so I do consider myself a Christian. But if I had to define it specifically, I would say I'm a hopeful agnostic.

Mark Phillips [04:17:55] But I think there's benefit to me to trying to follow the teachings of Jesus as I can understand them. But if in the New Testament there's a little section where Jesus seems to say divorce is bad, I don't have to pick that and say, oh, that's definitely the absolute inerrant truth. That could have been mistranslated, that could have been whatever. He could have been talking about a specific situation that we don't understand the context for. So yeah, I'm not going to take something little piece out of the Bible and say, oh, that means this. You know, I take what I see as the larger message, especially from the four Gospels, and yeah, and say, you know, Jesus was a person that fought against, well, fought against, rebelled against the religious establishment.

Mark Phillips [04:18:45] You know, he was somebody that said, you guys are taking all this stuff the wrong way and you need to chill out and you need to love one another. And that's what I'm trying to teach you guys. You need to stop judging each other so much. You need to, you know, you need to, you know, try to be better people. And that's, I guess that's the message that I take from it.

Carah Burrell [04:19:11] Yeah. Yeah, I totally respect that. I think that's beautiful. And I think for a lot of Mormon stories, listeners and people who don't really know what else is out there outside of Mormonism of something they've been told is the one true church, I think the way that you explained that and your. Your hopeful agnosticism for. For Christianity and for Jesus is a beautiful place to land. So. And not taking things into judgmental or too serious and finding beauty, like you said earlier. Say that quote again, that there's no peace with oppression.

Mark Phillips [04:19:43] Make no peace with oppression.

Carah Burrell [04:19:44] Right, right.

Mark Phillips [04:19:46] Is the call to make no peace with oppression.

Carah Burrell [04:19:48] Yeah, yeah, we all cherry pick everything. Anyone who says they don't have a bias and they don't cherry pick, we all do. Yeah. And so, yeah, finding a way to find the best parts of what Jesus taught and hopefully live up to just, yeah, the best aspects of whether or not he was God makes makes little difference to me, the atheist in the room, but. So, Zelle, where. Where. Where did you land?

Zelle Phillips [04:20:17] I've landed in. I'm so. I'm done with organized religion for who knows how long, but I've decided that me and organized religion are not a good mix. And so I'm personally agnostic. I wouldn't. I don't know if I'm a hopeful agnostic or more leaning towards atheists, but I'm definitely just agnostic, and I just kind of do what I want say, I don't know. Yep. I've decided it doesn't really matter to me because honestly, at this point, I think I need to focus more on just living my life and, you know, doing what I think is good. And honestly, it's not like I'm gonna go around and, like, start doing crazy things.

Zelle Phillips [04:20:53] I'm just gonna live a normal life and, you know, find my peace and be happy with what I do. I hope to, you know, get married and have a family that's healthy and just, you know, be away from organized religion as a whole.

Carah Burrell [04:21:09] I want to voice what I hear commenters saying right now, which is, oh, well, what if you had the perfectly good opportunity to you know, go to another church like your dad, or that there's no morality outside of religion or outside of being a Christian. Where do you find your purpose, your, you know, reason to get out of bed, your reason to keep living, your reason to do hard things, your purpose and drive and motivation to be moral, to be a good person? What. What, have you reframed? Yeah. Now that you've left the church?

Zelle Phillips [04:21:45] Well, I mean, honestly, I don't feel like I need the. This might just be who I am as a person, but I don't feel like I need a moral purpose to keep me to be a good person. Like, I don't need a church to tell me to be a good person. I feel like I've always been somebody who's wanted to help people and serve people and just do what's right to the point that I don't feel like I need a church to tell me how to be a good person. And I also don't feel like I need to have, like, an explicit, like, ex. Like, like outside motive to have, like, a purpose to my life and what I do.

Zelle Phillips [04:22:21] I feel like honestly living life, to live life and just see life to its fullest is good enough. Like just experiencing new things and, you know, making goals and reaching them and stuff. But I don't feel like I need to have a purpose to make my life meaningful at this point because I feel like that kind of backfired on me having this. This strange purpose that honestly became an obsession that warped a lot of my life from my young formative years. I feel like, personally for myself, I find myself a lot happier if I just live life, to live it, rather than living to die, as I had previously stated. That's how I was going.

Carah Burrell [04:23:00] Right. And so, Zelle, what else is next for you? I'm assuming you are starting at a different university or. Where you. Where are you going from here?

Zelle Phillips [04:23:08] Just taking a break. So I'm moving to Birmingham. I'm moving into a townhouse with some friends of mine and I'm getting a job. I'm working at a preschool as a preschool teacher for a bit. And I'm just gonna see where life takes me from there. I'm gonna start dating so I can finally have a bit of a normal dating life for once in my life and just see where it goes from there and, you know, see where that leads. Maybe I'll go back to school, maybe I won't. We'll see.

Carah Burrell [04:23:36] Cool. Cool. And since you're very proficient at flirting now, as we established, please make sure to keep us updated on how that goes. So as we're wrapping up, is there any other kind of, like, final things? I always like to ask people, you know, when we're taught we go through, you know, we're coming up on four and a half hours of a life story. Hope your bladders are doing okay, everybody. We haven't taken a break. But looking back on different pivotal moments in your life, if you. I was thinking, Zelle of you when you, when we, before we even started this interview, about how you felt like there was so much pain of not being able to talk about your, you know, your attraction to women.

Carah Burrell [04:24:23] Is there something at a certain point it sounds like maybe your mission or something? What, what do you wish that you would have known sooner that you could tell your younger self? And Mark, I'll ask you the same question too.

Zelle Phillips [04:24:34] Yeah, my younger self, honestly, my younger self just needed to learn not to carry everything, like, inside myself. Like, I feel like if I had talked to people or like even just been like, I'm very open and honest with my parents, I feel like. But I feel like if I had decided not to carry the things that I had secretly decided were my like and not better words, but like, my cross to bear, honestly, if I had not decided that I needed to bear my silent crosses and not tell anybody because I decided that I could handle it on my own and I would just worry people if I talked about it.

Zelle Phillips [04:25:14] And so I just wanted to figure things out on my own because I. Because I. I think that also had a lot to do with the fact that I felt like I didn't have a lot of control in a lot of things grow, like, not like growing up, but, like, church wise. I felt like I never had a lot of control in things. So it did lead to, like, when it came to bigger things, I felt like it had to be me who made the decision. So I knew that it was my decision and not something that was like, outside forces, which turned out it was very manipulated by my thoughts of the church.

Zelle Phillips [04:25:42] But, I mean, you live and you learn, but I wish I had just talked to more people and kind of, you know, just kind of gotten that out and not bored alone for so long.

Carah Burrell [04:25:54] Yeah. Because what, what does that do to a person long term? I mean, you were able to come out at what age and leave the church?

Zelle Phillips [04:26:00] Like 20.

Carah Burrell [04:26:02] And I can only imagine, you know, there are people in the church who they, they suffocate those things down until they're 40, 50, 60. I get messages from people who are 67. I answered a message on my DMs today of somebody who has been suffocating down, you know, these feelings. So I can only imagine if that's how you felt when you were 19, 20, how much worse it can compound over time. So your message to other people that might be in that same situation that are, you know, having feelings for members of their same gender or maybe they're pansexual, they wanna. That are just not fitting within the church's body box. Would your message just basically be to.

Zelle Phillips [04:26:42] Yeah, talk to other people and honestly, in the end, do what makes you happy? Like, I think that the biggest thing is everything will work out in one. If we're gonna. Like, I mean, in all honesty, I believe everything will work out in one way or another. If there is a God, I assure that he is very merciful and understands all of our thoughts.

Zelle Phillips [04:27:06] So I see no reason for him to punish us for not knowing any better and only wanting to be happy. I think as long as you're striving to do what is best for you and like, you know, obviously not hurting those around you, but also understanding that you as a person need to live your life for yourself too. You can't just live your life as a. To go back to my other words, a sacrificial lamb for whatever you've decided to sacrifice yourself for. That's. Yeah, kind of what I want to say.

Carah Burrell [04:27:33] That's so good. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I'm glad that we were able to finally. I feel like this was an amazing, amazing interview and I hope you guys were able to say most of the things that you wanted to get off of your chest. So. So, Mark, is there anything else that you wish you could have told yourself sooner that you've realized that you've come to an understanding of now?

Advice, Reflections, and Closing Thoughts

Mark Phillips [04:27:56] Yeah, I don't know. As El was talking and saying such that awesome stuff like, I don't know that I have any good advice. I would, you know, if I could talk to my. It's a process, you know, the whole thing is a process. If I tried to tell my, you know, just off my mission self if I tried to talk to him, he would think I was an imposter and probably try to fight me, you know, So I. So I think it had to be a process. And I have to remember that when I try to talk to other people, is that for them it's a process too?

Carah Burrell [04:28:24] For sure.

Mark Phillips [04:28:25] And they're at different spots, but I Think I would. If I talked to my younger self, I would just say, hold on. You know, it's a wild ride and it's all good.

Carah Burrell [04:28:34] You'll get there.

Mark Phillips [04:28:34] Yeah, it's all there.

Carah Burrell [04:28:36] You'll be sitting in a Mormon story studio one day telling this story. What's Mormon stories? Just you wait, kid.

Mark Phillips [04:28:43] Yeah, I was. I would. That's true. You know, back in 2005 or 2006, if I could have told myself, hey, hey, there's a podcast called Mormon Stories. Look that up, I would have. I would have found it amazing back then.

Carah Burrell [04:28:53] Yeah. Yeah, I did find that podcast. And I was like, john de Linde's a sinner. He's an apostate. I'll never be rubbing elbows with that dude. I'm sitting in his chair. Yeah, yeah. Singing karaoke with him. That's awesome. Funny how the turns have tabled. But anyway, so is there anything else that. As we wrap up, just like your final thoughts or anything else that you wanted to share?

Mark Phillips [04:29:16] The only other thing that occurs to me just in. In that theme is just to other. To people in the church who are having doubts or concerns that so many other people around you are having doubts and concerns. There's such a culture of silence in the church. That was what the reaction to my post taught me more than anything. And the conversations I've had with so many active believing or nuanced or somewhere in between members of the church is that there is so many other people have doubts and concerns. And if there is some way that we can break that culture of silence, I think it would help a lot of people. People.

Carah Burrell [04:29:52] Right on. Yeah. And you want to hear something kind of embarrassing? I do this for a living. I am very. Do you think I'm scared of anything? No. The one thing in the world I'm scared of. I've never made a Facebook post. I've never told on Instagram or Facebook. I've never told all of my ward members. I've never told all my Facebook friends that I left the church or that I do this for a living. But you've inspired me. I want to go find your Facebook post. I want to read it, and I want to plagiarize it.

Mark Phillips [04:30:17] You can probably things make it better.

Carah Burrell [04:30:19] No, I cannot. But it's. It's making me realize, yes, there is definitely a culture of silence within the church. And I. I'm conditioned with that to. I can tell strangers more easily that I've lost my faith all day long.

Zelle Phillips [04:30:32] Oh, yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:30:32] Than I can that people who you know, raised me in young women's or. I know. It just feel really sad.

Mark Phillips [04:30:38] It's like.

Carah Burrell [04:30:38] It's not like something you did. It's just. It's a not true thing to me anymore, you know? So nothing personal.

Zelle Phillips [04:30:45] Yep, exactly.

Carah Burrell [04:30:46] Right. So. All right. I guess we're coming to the end. Yeah. All right. Did we get everything off of our. Our chest? This was a wonderful interview, and I'm so honored that you guys were able to kind of like swing by through Alabama, like, come through Salt Lake City, make a pit stop here in the middle of a snowstorm, by the way.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:05] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:31:05] Z. What are these shoes? What are these? What is. What are you doing here?

Zelle Phillips [04:31:09] The south and me. I. I can't.

Carah Burrell [04:31:10] Those are the Rexburg she's still wearing.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:11] I wear these all through Rexburg.

Carah Burrell [04:31:13] Yeah. Unless you don't want to show your feet on camera, but you could.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:17] I'm wearing sandals.

Carah Burrell [04:31:19] It's the Rexburg that she's rebelling cuz she couldn't wear those in Rexburg.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:22] Oh, I wore them in Rexburg. I have purple toes. Half the time. I refuse to take off my sandals.

Carah Burrell [04:31:29] I love that.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:30] I will not be wearing snowshoes. I'm against it highly.

Carah Burrell [04:31:33] The Birkenstock lesbian is reigning supreme here today.

Zelle Phillips [04:31:37] Oh, yeah, we got the cut. Tough jeans and everything.

Carah Burrell [04:31:41] All right, well, I would love to just thank you again, Mark and Zelle, and I'm sure that this was kind of like an awkward pit stop that your Mormon family's like, where are you going tomorrow? And I hope that that led to positive conversations, not negative ones.

Mark Phillips [04:31:57] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [04:31:58] So if people do. If they want to reach out to you, are you open to that? If people sure want to hear your story and they want to reach out, is there any particular, like, platform or handle that you want to give out or when people start?

Mark Phillips [04:32:11] I'm just on Facebook, so other than

Zelle Phillips [04:32:12] that, honestly, Facebook would be the best for me.

Mark Phillips [04:32:15] Okay.

Zelle Phillips [04:32:16] My Instagram's private, so.

Carah Burrell [04:32:18] Okay. So if people are like, I love your story and I relate to this particular thing or ask for advice.

Mark Phillips [04:32:23] Sure. If you look up. Yeah. Mark Phillips, Psychologist, Alabama. Then I would probably pop up on Facebook.

Zelle Phillips [04:32:28] My name doesn't exist. Exist. So Zelle Phillips is very easy to find.

Carah Burrell [04:32:32] It doesn't exist.

Zelle Phillips [04:32:33] Yeah, I'm the only one. So I love that you can find

Carah Burrell [04:32:36] names for the win. Yes. All right, well, everyone, thank you for joining us on this quite epic, delightful episode of Mormon Stories today. I just want to remind you that if you are not a donor to Mormon Stories. Hey, that's okay. We all have different priorities with where we spend our money. But if you have some and you want to keep this programming going to pay for Gerardo to pay for me to pay for the cinematography, all of the platforms that we host and keep this amazing content coming, you can go to MormonStories.org and press the donate button at the top. You can become a one time donor, a monthly donor.

Carah Burrell [04:33:14] Don't forget it's all tax deductible in the United States. And if you want to set up one time or monthly times, we really really appreciate our donors. They make all of this possible. And also we have a bunch of awesome Thrive events for community building. So check out the thrivebeyondreligion.com website and we're having a Thrive Unite day in all across the country and the world. Actually we're having 22 different community building for post Mormons. Sacramento, I'm speaking at that one but there's ones in like Costa Mesa in Texas is not a city but it's a state. I can't remember exactly where but if you're in interested in finding more community building as a post Mormon or questioning Mormon or progressive Mormon, make sure to check out the Thrive Beyond Religion website.

Carah Burrell [04:34:00] And I want to thank Gerardo who is an amazing co host and I can't cut to him right now because he had to leave but he knows that he's appreciated and loved and I was thankful that he was here and his contributions as somebody who grew up up gay in the church and went to byu Idaho and also speak Spanish and is amazing and insightful and thoughtful. So so glad Gerardo got to join me for this one. So yeah. This thus concludes the end of the Mormon Stories programming. If you have any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, leave them in the comments or email us@mormonstoriesgmail.com and thanks everybody.

Carah Burrell [04:34:41] All right, I've been Carah Burrell your host for today. I hope you've enjoyed me. Go easy on me and we'll see you next time on an episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Thanks everyone. Bye.

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