Introduction and Recap of Part One

Ben Jalaff [00:00:00] I know that you have lied now. There's no mental gymnastics for me. For me it's just like, no, no, no, no. You lie, it's over. I serve a mission. I didn't teach this. I didn't teach it.

John Dehlin [00:00:13] The church made you a liar.

Ben Jalaff [00:00:15] I went and lied.

Justine Jalaff [00:00:17] When Ben told me that he was walking away from the church, I knew at that moment that I was losing my privilege in the church. My privilege is through my priesthood holder because as a woman in the church, I do not have the priesthood. And then I'll be that lady sitting in the ward where everyone's going to talk about her in ward council and say, what can we do to support this woman with the priesthood because her husband has left the covenant path. And I knew in that moment that is not going to be my reality in the church.

Ben Jalaff [00:00:55] For me, I couldn't be a patriarchy. It just almost, almost felt like an abusive role to me. It wasn't in my DNA to be like that. She's expecting me to lead the household when I have no experience whatsoever how to do this.

Justine Jalaff [00:01:11] I internalized this messaging of prosperity gospel very hard that it's this transaction that if you do all the spiritual things, you'll be blessed financially. And I fully had faith in that. So if I'm going to make the sacrifice to have children and be a stay at home mom like I've been told they need and that is the most noblest work I'll ever do, then the Lord will provide for Ben. Just taking that pressure off of Ben and looking at more as like us. Being a team and working together and being companions and getting rid of those gender identified roles has changed our marriage and changed our lives.

Ben Jalaff [00:01:54] I left the church because I wanted to be a better human being. The church did not allow me to do that fully. I tried very hard to fit in a society that did not give me the tools I needed to be that human being. All I wanted was just to be a better person and I couldn't attend that in the church. I couldn't attain that.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] What would cause a devout Mormon couple from Canada to start questioning the Mormon Church? Hi, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. I'm John Dehlin. I'm here with my co host Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:32] Hello.

Ben Jalaff [00:02:32] Hey Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:33] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:02:34] And we're super excited for part two of an epic Canadian Venezuelan Mormon story with Justine Halaf. Hey Justine.

Justine Jalaff [00:02:45] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] And Ben.

Ben Jalaff [00:02:46] Hi everybody.

John Dehlin [00:02:48] We just did a good three, three and a half hours in a part one of this epic story where Ben talked about growing up in Venezuela, converting to the Mormon Church migrating to Canada. And a really intense but informative Mormon story. Growing up near Niagara Falls in Canada as a Mormon immigrant, Latino in Canada. Super powerful story. We also learned about Justine's upbringing as a multi generational Canadian Mormon and how they both met and served Mormon missions and eventually fell in love. And a lot of really cool themes. If you haven't watched part one, go back and watch it. You won't regret it. Really powerful. Lots of themes about faith, about race, about socioeconomic status, about culture, about identity. You just won't regret it. So go back and watch part one. This is part two. We're going to pick up with their love story where they both just recently got home from their missions and they fall in love. And we're going to talk about how could sort of, by some accounts, an ideal Canadian Mormon marriage. How could this couple return missionaries ever come to start questioning Mormonism and wonder whether it was good for them after they would have probably said for so many years it was the best thing that ever happened to them. So that's what we're going to talk about in part two. And so I give you again, Ben and Justine Halaf. How y' all feeling?

Justine Jalaff [00:04:34] Good.

Ben Jalaff [00:04:36] I'm feeling great.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] Yeah?

Ben Jalaff [00:04:37] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:04:38] I mean, we just did three hours. Three and a half hours. And we're gonna do a couple more.

Justine Jalaff [00:04:42] So I drank a Coke Zero, so I'm good to go.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:44] All right.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] Are Mormons allowed to drink Coke?

Justine Jalaff [00:04:47] I never drank Coke growing up.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Oh, but you make exceptions.

Justine Jalaff [00:04:50] I drink it now. It's a new day.

How Ben and Justine Got Together

John Dehlin [00:04:54] All right, so last we left off in your story, Ben, and this is. It's kind of. I'm joking, but also serious. Ben begged Justine to give him a chance in terms of, like, to date each other. And, Justine, you opened up and were willing to give Ben a chance, and you simultaneously fell in love with him. So how did your Mormon story progress from there?

Justine Jalaff [00:05:23] Well, we dated for a year, and I moved to Alberta for eight months and we did a year.

John Dehlin [00:05:29] Mormons never last a year. What?

Justine Jalaff [00:05:31] I wanted to finish my degree in Alberta.

John Dehlin [00:05:33] Good for you. Well, that's.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:34] Yeah. And also we didn't want to be that couple that got married in two to three months.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] So you fell in love, but then immediately you went off from Niagara Falls area to Calgary area to Edmonton to finish my degree. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:50] I had a year left.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] So what was that like to be apart when you were in love? You just fall in love.

Justine Jalaff [00:05:55] Well, see, so Ben and I only dated, like, I think three to four weeks before I went to Alberta. Our entire relationship up until we got married was long distance because even when I came back from Alberta, he lived in London and I lived in Niagara Falls, just two and a half hours away. So when I lived in Edmonton, Ben diligently called me every single day.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Wow.

Justine Jalaff [00:06:24] But he was very nervous.

John Dehlin [00:06:26] Yeah, I would imagine. Ben, you would worry you'd lose her.

Justine Jalaff [00:06:29] Yeah, he did.

Ben Jalaff [00:06:29] Yeah. Multiple times. I thought she was going to call me and give me the Dear John, just, you know, she found somebody and I knew that when she moved to Alberta, she knew that she had her eyes on someone else. So that was always a worry about me, about her leaving there. That's why I call her every day that I could. But I always had that fear that, yeah, it's going to end at some point. So to some degree I was preparing myself. But I also didn't want to face that reality because I felt like, again, what do I do if this girl, if. If she breaks up with me? Right. Like, I finally have what I think I wanted for all these years and if he leaves and what do I have left? That's how I felt.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:12] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:13] And we.

John Dehlin [00:07:13] Sorry.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:13] We were just dating. We weren't engaged yet.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] Were you ever tempted to go with someone else while you were in.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:19] Yeah, Yeah, I was. This took a long time for me to admit to Ben.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:23] Oh, you know, I did.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:26] We talked about that.

John Dehlin [00:07:27] You developed feelings for someone else.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:28] No, no, no, no, no, no. But I was tempted to break up with him.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:33] Oh, yeah?

Justine Jalaff [00:07:33] Yeah, Yeah. A couple times.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:35] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:35] Because it just felt so hard.

Ben Jalaff [00:07:37] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:37] I'm like in the YSA scene in Edmonton.

John Dehlin [00:07:40] That's a young single adult for those who don't. Yeah, yeah. And dating other Canadian.

Justine Jalaff [00:07:45] And I'm the new RM coming back. New ward. Fresh Faces. And I'm the new Fresh Face guys are expressing interest in me and then as soon as they. As soon as they find out that I'm in a serious relationship and then eventually when I get engaged, it's like I'm in the YSA scene, but I'm not in the YSA scene because it's all about getting married. And so even socially, the thing is that I had good roommates, but they were all engaged at the same time as me. So they spent pretty much, I would say, every waking hour they could with their fiance's. And then there was me Skyping my fiance.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] So what was it that made you stay not break up with Ben? What was it, if you had to distill it?

Justine Jalaff [00:08:31] Um, if I'm being So honest. I felt bad. I didn't want to break his heart.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] You were worried about breaking his heart?

Justine Jalaff [00:08:42] Yeah. And I knew. I knew that if I broke his heart, he would step away from the church and not. Not go through with Mormonism, or he wouldn't be able to find another Mormon girl. I carried this guilt complex, but at the same time, I also loved him, if that makes any sense.

John Dehlin [00:09:03] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:04] But I was also, like, in a YSA scene in a different province, not being able to truly be in it and just feeling so alone.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:13] Because what makes you really valuable in a YSA kind of space is actually that you can date. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:21] And that's the fun of it. And that's the whole social scene. And when you're taken, no one cares about you.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:27] Right. You'll become more invisible.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:29] And my roommates, who I could have connected with on a social level, were just wrapped up in their own engagements.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] I mean, I'm glad to hear you say you also loved him, because I just. I was having this vision in my mind of you just sacrificing yourself as a more woman.

Justine Jalaff [00:09:47] No, it was this conflicting feeling of feeling that. And feeling like that pull from the YSA scene and not seeing Ben every day and having to just call and text and Skype just long distances. Like, there was another couple in that ward who did the same thing, and they ended up breaking up. Long distance is not easy, but I never felt that when I came back and was with him in person.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] So if he had been with you, it would have been pretty easy.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:16] It would have been different.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] It was just the long distance stuff. Okay, good.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:19] Yeah. And then that pull of feeling like, oh, man, I just served a mission, and I was so looking forward to coming back into this scene, and now I feel displaced once again here.

John Dehlin [00:10:31] Yeah.

Getting Married in the Mormon Temple

Margi Dehlin [00:10:33] All right.

John Dehlin [00:10:33] So you end up getting back together and getting married takes about a year.

Justine Jalaff [00:10:38] Over Christmas, I fly back to Ontario, and Ben proposes over the Christmas break, and we actually end up going and visiting Colombia over Christmas.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Colombia?

Justine Jalaff [00:10:47] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:10:48] Which is where your parents were originally from?

Ben Jalaff [00:10:50] Yeah. Is that right? I took Justine back to. To Colombia so she can get to see the rest of the family.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] So you still had family in Colombia, even though your parents moved to Venezuela?

Ben Jalaff [00:11:00] My whole family's there right now through its entirety. Like, the only people that were in Venezuela was just my parents and I and my Uncle Rocco. But, yeah, I took her there because I thought, well, you're marrying me. It is appropriate that you meet the. The rest of everybody else is. Right. But that was just a Brief visit. That's about it.

John Dehlin [00:11:19] Yeah. Okay, so you got engaged, went to Colombia, and then when did you get married and where.

Justine Jalaff [00:11:27] So we got married in August 2012 in the Toronto Temple.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Toronto Temple. Which I've. Which I've done. I've done endowments in the Toronto Temple with my sister. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:11:35] Yeah. I do want to point out, though, is that once again, it wasn't fair, I think, to either of us that Ben had to feel this level of desperation that he needed to call me every single day, that he needed to fear that he would lose me, that when he heard I did a temple trip, he would have anxiety because he thought I was praying about him in the temple, and maybe I'd get a different answer. And then at the same time, me being on the other side, feeling that desperation, and I don't think that that was fair.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:09] Not fair. Why?

Justine Jalaff [00:12:11] I just don't think that was fair to him. Like I said, never should have even been in that position. When you're in a relationship, you shouldn't feel desperate to make it work. You shouldn't feel that sense of, if I don't have this, I have nothing.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] And again, we touched on this last episode, but it's basically Mormon or human culture of looking down on people maybe of a different color or a different culture or different language, first language, or. Or socioeconomic status. You know, as humans, we come by it honestly, but Mormons are as prone to bias or racism or bigotry or white supremacy as any culture. Right?

Justine Jalaff [00:12:55] Yeah. And just like, I think Ben felt like I was going to Alberta and I was being surrounded by native white Americans who were becoming lawyers and doctors and engineers. And here he is back home, struggling to figure out what he's going to do. And so, I don't know. Am I painting that right?

Ben Jalaff [00:13:14] Yeah, I think so. Be honest.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:16] Can I keep going?

Ben Jalaff [00:13:17] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:18] Okay. And so I think he felt, like, this level of insecurity that he was going to lose me to someone like that, which was very real, I think. But what kept me going was that we had such amazing phone conversations. Like, we just loved talking, talking to each other.

John Dehlin [00:13:40] That's good.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:40] And we had so much fun Skyping each other. And I was like, you know what? If. If this can be so great without the physical, then I think we have something really special going. And that's what kept me going, actually.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] And you.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:56] When it felt hard and it felt lonely.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:13:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:00] Sounds like you did have something special.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:03] Yeah. Okay. So you got married in Toronto.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:07] Yes. And so, funny story. So since we both served missions, we both forgot our new names.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] And it was very stressful for never Mormons. When you go through the Mormon Temple for the first time as an adult, you're assigned a new name.

Justine Jalaff [00:14:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. People who are active will freak out that I'm saying these things, but so

John Dehlin [00:14:27] mine was Isaiah, for example,

Justine Jalaff [00:14:31] and so that was very stressful for me. And also, once again, Ben was still feeling that sense that he might still lose me at any minute. I pulled up to the temple in the car with my mom, and I was bawling my eyes out because I thought, here I am. I made it to the temple, and this is such a spiritual moment for me. So I'm, like, crying about it. And Ben thinks I'm crying because I'm gonna break up with him on the day of our wedding. Just such a level of insecurity that continues into our marriage. And so it was a very stressful. I can't say that it was my favorite part of our marriage. Everything felt very rushed because we were delayed because of them. Oh, I have to say this. This was the first time I found out. I was so stressed about not knowing the new name because I thought it came through revelation. But what actually happened is they just called the Edmonton temple, and then they were able to find out what day I was endowed and which name I was assigned.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:30] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] And a lot of Mormons to this day don't know this. That's. They have this calendar where depending on the day you go through the temple, everyone who goes to the temple on that day in the world gets that name. So it's like if it's Tuesday, February 16, it's Roda for all the women in the world who go through the temple on that day. And it's like that. So you didn't know. You thought it was God's name for you.

Justine Jalaff [00:15:58] Yeah. And what happens, what they do is they find out what the three names were for that day, and then they tell you the three names, and you have to recognize which one was yours.

John Dehlin [00:16:07] Oh, there's three in a day.

Justine Jalaff [00:16:08] Well, they gave me three names, and I had to recognize, and I couldn't recognize it. So that caused me even more stress. But I think the temple worker couldn't understand why I was so emotionally worked up about it. But it's because I thought I got it through revelation, and it was a special thing I had to remember. And so anyways, it's not through revelation. Yeah. So. But because we're smart and I learned from past sibling experiences and friends experiences. We scheduled our reception for the next day, and that was so fun.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:39] Yeah, that's such a great idea.

Justine Jalaff [00:16:41] And why was that so great? Because I think for the first time, I felt like something was truly celebrating me and was celebrating us, and everyone was there for us and because we grew up in the same. Because I grew up in London and then moved to Niagara Falls, and then Ben grew up in Welland and then moved to London. We had both stakes there, and it was just this big community of people who were, like, all there for us, and we all knew each other, and we, like, just ended up dancing the night away.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] It must have been a beautiful Canadian Mormon moment to have all those friends and ward members and family members from all these different wards and branches and stakes all come together to celebrate this Canadian Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:25] Yeah. And also they knew those who knew Ben, knew how long he liked me. So it was like this epic love story, and it just got celebrated.

John Dehlin [00:17:35] So happy memories.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:36] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:37] And also Ben and I like to have fun. So it was a really fun wedding.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] Nice.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:40] Sounds like it.

Justine Jalaff [00:17:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:42] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:42] So did you. Were you. Was part of that also that you had maybe a little window together before

Justine Jalaff [00:17:49] you had the,

Margi Dehlin [00:17:52] you know, the reception and inviting kind of everyone into that? Was it nice to have a pause where actually the decision you made, you're connecting with the person you made it with before, like, having all the people.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:08] It was just nice not being exhausted because you had gone to the temple in Toronto and then traveled another two and a half hours to go back to Niagara Falls to have the wedding in the chapel. Yeah. And you're exhausted. I like the reason I did that. I know myself. I get. I do not do well when I'm hangry, when I'm tired. Yeah, I know. I was like. And I want this for me. I love that I deserve this.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:31] I love that you had that insight.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:33] I know some family members felt awkward about it because everyone knew what we did the night before, but I didn't care.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:40] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:41] That's great.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:42] Anything you want to share about the wedding?

Ben Jalaff [00:18:45] No, no. It was well versed by Justine. She pretty good.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] It was a good, good experience for you overall.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:51] I had a good time for years.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:52] People said it was the best reception.

Ben Jalaff [00:18:54] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:18:54] I don't want to be vain, but I think it was just that sense of community and camaraderie and. And these. These two youth that everyone watched growing up and coming together, but also talking

John Dehlin [00:19:05] about, like, the Mormon checklist. The number one item on the Mormon checklist is a temple marriage by far. There is no bigger item on the checklist. This was you guys accomplishing that. And for you, Ben, who probably was always worried you would not accomplish that, how was it for you?

Ben Jalaff [00:19:24] It was like a way. It was like a way lift up my shoulders. Because I truly love Justine. I had eyes for her since she was a teenager. I also consider that to be a huge miracle for me as well. Just seeing the person that I truly wanted and finally achieving that was great. It was. I still. It's such a special day. The fact that that first night, not for the other reasons, but just to wake up next to her, knowing that I don't have to travel anymore to see her. But now it's done. I'm with the one I love, and that's it. It was just such a. One of the best moments of my life was that day, for sure.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] So it's. So it's happily ever after, then, right?

Justine Jalaff [00:20:11] Well, I have to say, everyone's like, the first year of your marriage is gonna be so hard. And I was like, it doesn't feel hard. It's fun.

John Dehlin [00:20:18] The first year was good.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:20] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:21] We didn't have a hard time living with each other.

John Dehlin [00:20:23] You were kind of besties.

Ben Jalaff [00:20:25] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:25] Cause we already had that foundation of friendship, and we already knew each other and who each other was because of

John Dehlin [00:20:30] that year of Skype. Courtship.

Justine Jalaff [00:20:32] Yeah. But I do have to say that we did know each other, but also didn't know each other. So I didn't understand Ben's skill set, and I don't think I necessarily understand his strengths when it came to career. And so I was. And I also had, like, this expectation of what he needed to do, and it always involved education, because I was always taught growing up, you need a degree to succeed or at least, like, something. Which is true in a lot of ways. But no.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] Mormon men become dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, business people. Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:12] So Ben had. Ben had gone to college to try and become a police officer, and he probably would have ended up being a really good police officer, and he would have gotten in no problem, because especially in London, they like taking Latino people, and they're looking for that representation. And I told them when we were dating that I didn't want him to do it, and so he stopped. And so.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] And that's not. I mean, not to associate on you, but that's an honorable profession. Law enforcement.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:42] Yeah. But it scared me, and I was like, I don't want you doing that.

John Dehlin [00:21:45] It's not typical Mormon career. Path for a Mormon man. Right. Is that it or was it not for me, yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:21:53] Because we do have a friend who's Mormon who's. I know a few Mormons who are police officers.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] Yeah, I mean, I know they exist, but none of my friends.

Justine Jalaff [00:22:01] It's not the typical. What I had in mind is like, I want to marry an engineer.

John Dehlin [00:22:05] So I was like, okay, a white collar professional.

Justine Jalaff [00:22:07] So like Ben was always like, played baseball very seriously and was always very into athletics and sports. So I was like, let's get you into. So you can become like an assistant physiotherapist and we'll get you into this college and we'll get you into this program or let's get you into this degree and let's figure this out for you. Me. Well, he didn't have like the high school grades because he was in ESL and still learning English. And so that didn't prepare him to get into these competitive programs that get you these type of jobs. And so we were constantly, always racking our brain and it was Ben, this insecurity again, always wanting to make me happy, always wanting to please me, wanting to be what he felt like I needed from him or I wanted from him. And then me being like, maybe you should do this, maybe you should do this. And just like not being able to figure it out.

Early Marriage and Gender Role Expectations

John Dehlin [00:23:01] But the stakes were extra high because as you mentioned in the last episode, you were going to become a Mormon housewife and have lots of babies, so you weren't going to be providing. And so he needed to have a good enough income to provide for the entire family with lots of children on his own as a provider. Right?

Justine Jalaff [00:23:19] Yeah. And at the time, I always imagined myself having six children.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:24] Okay, was this something that you actually talked about openly? That you wanted to stay at home and.

Justine Jalaff [00:23:31] Okay, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:32] And have a lot of children?

Ben Jalaff [00:23:34] Yeah, we talked about that.

Justine Jalaff [00:23:36] I don't even know if we talked about it. It was just what was going to happen.

Ben Jalaff [00:23:39] It was just the expectation. It was actually what we could perceive already by seeing other couples. For me, it was nerve wracking because I knew for a fact that I was ill prepared to just actually lead the household simply because obviously the education aspect of it was a problem. It wasn't my fault. It was just I'm an immigrant trying to figure out career path and also my English not being the greatest when I supposed to me making these decisions. The problem also was that this role plays in me that I have to be the patriarch of my home where in my culture the Woman is the hammer. Right? My mom is the hammer of my household. I saw my mom making the tough decisions and my dad following. And my dad always taught me something that this is a lesson that I will always mention to people. My dad is like, woman here, men here. You got to get up there. Okay. That's how I learned. And all of a sudden, I'm supposed to be up here leading while the woman is here. So culturally, I'm like, well, I don't know how to do this, because I always learned that woman here, men here. And then we get to that point and both together do it. So that's also. She's expecting me to lead the household when I have no experience whatsoever how to do this. And even when I was an active Mormon, I'm still not gluing into the fact that I. Even when I want to get married and do this, I'm not thinking, oh, wait, I'm the one that needs to lead this with the priesthood and career and all of that. And that was a shortcoming thing for me because I wasn't. It wasn't in my DNA to be like that, which was something that I feel Justine was expecting. But for me, I couldn't be a patriarch. It just almost. Almost felt like an abusive role to me.

Justine Jalaff [00:25:27] Yeah. And you were already put at a disadvantage because you served a mission. Like, you're an immigrant to a new country. Not even you're a refugee. You eventually become a citizen. You're a displaced person. English is your second language. You struggle with that language. You don't have any parental support or guidance in the education system because they're in flight or flight survival mode, and they don't even. They don't even understand the education system themselves. So you're just being put in all the bird classes to just get you through high school and then. And then instead of going to college to upgrade and take your time figuring out what you can do with your skill set and your disadvantage, like a lot of immigrants do. Instead. Instead he goes and works at a quail farm for a year, serves a mission for two years, and then comes home and has to work and make money again.

John Dehlin [00:26:17] Pest control, sales.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:18] That's four to five years. That's an entire degree plus a master's.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:23] Like. And then all of a sudden, he gets home from his. Sorry, I'm angry about this. He gets home from his mission, and he's told, no, no, no. The number one thing you need to worry about is getting married.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:32] That's right. Have a. Get a. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:35] But at the same time, you also need to provide for three to four to five to six children and a wife who. How is that possible?

Margi Dehlin [00:26:43] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:26:44] And me, I just didn't have the brain to even, like, comprehend this struggle because that was part of Ben that I didn't know. And also, that wasn't an experience I understood at the time, that struggle. And so I was just like, we gotta get you into this college. We got figure this out. And so we actually ended up moving to Alberta, and I ended up getting pregnant at the same time for Ben to go do a trade in electrical trade to become an electrician. And him and his desperation and wanting to do everything is like, okay, let's go. Meanwhile, I'm not even understanding. Like, actually, like, he's not very good at math. And so we go.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] And electricians need to be good at math.

Justine Jalaff [00:27:27] Yeah. Like, at least at the beginning, like, he has a math phobia. Like, he has, like, intense issues.

Ben Jalaff [00:27:34] I just always wanted to please Justine, everything Justine said, because here I am with my confidence still low, like, I cannot afford to upset my wife. I cannot afford to tell her what I really, truly want, because I don't want to risk anything.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] Which was what?

Ben Jalaff [00:27:47] Which was, you know, I wanted to work. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I saw that as a good opportunity. I also wanted to be a cop, you know, because I felt like it was a cool career. I talked to someone already, and they told me at college, because I was going to police foundations, and they told me, what are you doing here? You're a Latino, you can get a job. I went through training, I went through the late stages of getting a career in policing, and Justine said no. So when she makes that decision, what I'm thinking is, I cannot risk, really speaking of what I truly want, because, number one, I don't know exactly what I want yet, because I haven't figured it out. And at the same time, I don't want to disappoint her, you know, because to me, I just. I got something so great. I marry the woman of my life. I cannot afford to screw this. So every decision she made, I had to, yeah, sure, we'll do this, we'll do that.

Justine Jalaff [00:28:42] And I also want to say, at the same time, I had zero motivation to get a career. So I was the one with the degree. I was the one who could have gotten into teachers college and become a teacher with the salary job, while Ben could have taken his time to figure this out. But I ended up working part time at the Same job I worked at as a teenager with zero motivation, sleeping 13 hour nights in our dark basement suite apartment and just thinking, I'm just gonna get pregnant. And we just have to figure this out for Ben. So what happens? I get pregnant eight months into the marriage and then we irrationally, like super quickly just make this quick decision. Let's go to Alberta and get you a trade. We go to Alberta. Economy is very good at the time. We both got a job within a week. He got a job in a warehouse and I got a job at an office and I work there till my maternity. And he's doing really well in this warehouse. But because it wasn't a career job, in my mind, it's like, no, you gotta search for this opportunity to become an electrician, at least get a trade so that you have job security and we don't have to worry about you putting in 20 years at a warehouse and then all of a sudden getting fired and then having nothing left, that

Ben Jalaff [00:30:00] is when, that's when things started to get figured out for me. Because that warehouse job taught me that, hey, I could do this. And people in the warehouse, they're validating me. They're actually giving positional leadership in this warehouse. I'm getting paid well. That's when I started to figure it out, like, oh, this is what I'm good at. I think I would like to tag after this. But then again, the perception of career, you know, of having this career with title. I quit the warehouse job and it put myself in this position as an electrician and that's when things just again dies down again. I'm not very good, as sad as that sounds. I'm not good at what. Mathematically, I am terrible at it and I couldn't succeed. It brought me back down again. When I felt like in the warehouse, I finally feel like I'm getting validated. I'm good at this. But then Justine has this mindset that career, career, career.

Justine Jalaff [00:30:50] And also that if we're going to be depending on one income, it needs to be a job where I can feel secure in. And a warehouse doesn't make me feel secure.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:00] Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:00] Even though in Alberta, actually, this warehouse was like, it was piping.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:04] Yeah, it was a piping and it had a union.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:07] He probably would have.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:08] Yeah, it would have been fine. It would have been fine.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:09] He probably would have moved up to like manager position and made like 80 grand a year and then I could have worked and we would have been just fine. But because I wasn't gonna work and I was Gonna stay home. I was pregnant. He needed to find a career.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:24] Career.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:25] And I would add to that is also growing up with the gender roles of my family. My parents sometimes will question that I can Justine work? You know, you can work and Justine can work and together you guys financially provide.

John Dehlin [00:31:36] That's how the rest of the world works.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:38] You know, that's so logical.

Ben Jalaff [00:31:39] My parents are actually telling me this, like she could work. Doesn't she have like a degree? My parents thought that she was a teacher. Like she can go work and you work and together you'll be fine. We'll be fine. But then yet we're struggling. And it almost feels self induced to my parents view, like this has a solution if you listen.

Justine Jalaff [00:31:58] And I also want to throw in like I put so much trust into that transaction. We talked about that. If I'm putting eternal choices first. I served a mission. I did everything that was ever asked of me. I'm choosing to be a mom. I will be blessed financially.

John Dehlin [00:32:18] The Lord is bound.

Justine Jalaff [00:32:19] The Lord was bound to me. And the Lord will find a way for Ben to provide and will be just fine. And I have the faith that everything will work out for us because we're doing everything we're supposed to do. And I internalized this messaging of prosperity gospel very hard that it's this transaction that if you do all the spiritual things, you'll be blessed financially. And like that was also taught to me. Like I internalized the elder Holland talk where he was like driving with his family and his car kept breaking down because they were so poor that they couldn't fix it. And he talks about, just stay in there, keep the faith because it will get better. You know, me and my family are poor, but. And we had these really hard times, but we had the faith and the Lord will provide base type messaging. And I fully had faith in that. So if I'm going to make the sacrifice to have children and be a stay at home mom like I've been told they need, and that is the most noblest work I'll ever do, then the Lord will provide for Ben.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:29] Right? Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:30] If I can just add one just quick observation that I learned growing up in Texas, there were a lot of, you know, I had white friends, I had African American friends, I had Hispanic friends. It is, I think it's natural to view someone whose first language isn't English to be just obviously less intelligent. Because, you know, the smartest people speak English the best and so they're gonna seem the most intelligent. And if somebody's speaking what you perceive as broken English, well, they can't be as smart. And that's. I'm not saying it's even conscious, but that's a thing. Then you.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:09] Are you saying that's an assumption?

John Dehlin [00:34:11] Yeah, it's a bad, It's a wrong, harmful. I've seen that perception and I'm just, I'm endorsing it as I had to deal with that. But then where it really came to light for me is like, I'll be in a cab somewhere in New York or wherever and I'll meet some immigrant and they'll say, oh, I was a lawyer in my home country or I was a doctor in my home country. And I'd be like, wait, you were a lawyer, a doctor or engineer and you're driving a cab now? And they're like, yeah, because the licenses don't transfer. And then you come here and English is your second language. And you don't just jump into an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor job. Even if you were super intelligent and well respected. And I think I would add, people think you're not as smart because English is your second language, not your first. And this is just, it's just a cultural dynamic that I'm admitting that is awful.

Encountering Racism and Prejudice in the Church

Margi Dehlin [00:35:13] An aspect of racism and harmful.

Justine Jalaff [00:35:15] And it exists in Canada.

John Dehlin [00:35:17] Yeah. That people. And so again, this is all the type of stuff that you would have to deal with for no fault of your own. Right. Because how many, if a bunch of white people went to Venezuela or Panama and tried to have successful careers? Some might do well, but a lot of them probably won't, you know what I mean? Because it's. How would they do well in a totally different country with a totally different language? No context, no connections, you know, and if you did do well, it would likely because English and American culture, you know, colonized so many places that there are benefits to knowing English. But again, it wouldn't be because those white people are necessarily in any way smarter. And I just, I just want to call that out because that's. I don't know, it just feels relevant.

Justine Jalaff [00:36:08] Yeah, I can't even imagine having to do that. And I've seen Ben's parents, and they literally rose themselves up from the dirt. Up.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:36:19] Through sheer grit, hard work and resilience. But they both had to do it.

Ben Jalaff [00:36:26] I saw it in Venezuela, too. In Venezuela, my dad moved and was a bus driver, sold hot dogs, sold coffee in the streets, and then found a factory job that paid well. And after that, he got enough money to open a Liquor store in Puerto La Cruz. Liquor store took off. Then he became a merchant. I seen my dad done some things with my mom that is remarkable in a third world country. To come to Canada and to do it without English. Where they're at right now is I can only imagine if they spoke English well, where they will go. Because right now they live well with their broken English. Where they will be if they actually spoke. And the reason why they don't speak English is because of what we learned when we first came to the country. Be careful with the Canadian government. They're going to offer you money, but it could work against you in court. When you have that court hearing, they're gonna look at, they took money and they didn't do anything. My dad quit the money from the government two weeks into it and got jobs. That's why he couldn't learn English because he was constantly working and to the point where he's suffering now because his grandkids don't speak Spanish. But I look at it now like they go places with the little that they had. And that's a remarkable thing.

Justine Jalaff [00:37:42] They have a nicer house than we do.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] One more thing I just want to admit and own, and I just want my fellow, I don't know, white people to think about is growing up in Texas, there was a really awful stereotype around Hispanics. Now, admitted, I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Houston. I don't know if these stereotypes still exist, but there was a term for Hispanic immigrants in Texas and it's a really offensive term. Do you know what term I'm about to say?

Ben Jalaff [00:38:17] I think spics, maybe.

John Dehlin [00:38:19] Well, that was one, but there was another one and it's going to be offensive. Wetback. You ever heard that term?

Ben Jalaff [00:38:26] Yeah, I heard it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:27] And what it implies, it was a derogatory term that implied they came to Texas by, what, swimming over the Rio Grande to get to Texas from Mexico. And there was just a cultural assumption that Latinos or Hispanics were lazy.

Ben Jalaff [00:38:47] You said that, but in Canada I actually heard things too. Not to that degree, but I will heard things like, you know, oh, where are you from? Oh, from Venezuela also. You swam all the way here? No, idiot, I took a plane. You know, like things like that. Because they are associating people from Cuba taking a canoe to get to the coast of Florida. Yeah, but that to them, they associate every culture into one singular thing. Or you swum here. You know how many times I heard that my country doesn't have computers. Yeah, things like that. From people like we have computers. Like, what makes you think we don't have computers? It's just those levels. And you mentioned that we have it in Canada. Oh, we do. We have it in Canada.

John Dehlin [00:39:30] Okay. And then the other, only other realization I had is when immigrants come here, they take these jobs like working at farms or working on construction. And I just admit that I viewed those jobs as being inferior. And I had to sit with those stereotypes of immigrants being lazy. But it took me just a little bit of thought to realize these are jobs that most white Americans wouldn't last a day, a day in, not for any other reason, but that they're so challenging, so hard that we wouldn't have the character to last a day. So the opposite was true. But these weren't lazy people. These were some of the hardest working, highest integrity, most determined, ethical people. But somehow, because of immigrant bias, anti immigrant bias, or racism, I would sit with these perceptions that were the opposite of true. And I just wanted, I want to call that out. I want to own it. And especially right now, not getting political, but right now I think this notion of immigrant bias and perceptions is as relevant in 2025 as it's ever been.

Ben Jalaff [00:41:07] It is. It happened just in Detroit when we're coming here. I met a couple from Nicaragua. I asked them, hey, where are you from? And they totally lied to me. Oh, we're from Florida. I just listened to you in Spanish because people are trying to protect themselves now because I felt their fear when I found out you guys speak in Spanish. And I didn't glue into the fact, like, this is what's happening right now, that fear mongering that is going on right now. I can see it in their faces.

John Dehlin [00:41:33] So, yeah, and that's a whole different thing now. It's all immigrants came from either prison or were felons or were in mental institutions. That's a whole new thing for me. It was, they're all lazy, they swim over the river. But it's all awful. And I just want to call that out.

Justine Jalaff [00:41:56] It's not just people leaving war torn countries, escaping with their lives, trying to make a better life for their children, being culturally displaced and trying to start over in a brand new country with a brand new language, plus carrying all of their trauma, and yet we have this prejudice going on.

John Dehlin [00:42:16] Yeah, I had to just. Yeah, thank you for helping me just address that.

Justine Jalaff [00:42:21] Yeah, it needs to be addressed.

Life as a Young Mormon Married Couple

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Okay, so I guess tell us anything else you want to tell about your early Mormon marriage that's important before we start talking about the cracks Emerging in your respective Mormon testimonies.

Justine Jalaff [00:42:39] I'd like to talk about motherhood for a little bit. Like, and I think like, us struggling financially played a big part in that. Like, just feeling like I was very lucky. As in, I had easy pregnancies and I had easy labors and I had very healthy children and I don't suffer from mental health. I, I'm so lucky. And my body snapped back physically so fast. But I felt so lost in motherhood. Like, I felt like when you're taught that being a mother is a role and that being mother is an identity, but also that being a mother is a spiritual calling from God and the highest calling. And the highest calling, because the, the prophets and apostles, they praise motherhood like crazy because they want to make you feel good that you don't have the priesthood. Right.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] That you're a second class citizen.

Justine Jalaff [00:43:38] Yeah. They tell you you're so wonderful, we could never be like you. You've got the noblest, most important calling. And look at us dudes who need the priesthood to serve. Right? But like, as a result of that, so many girls and women internalize that motherhood is an identity. Motherhood is a gender role. Motherhood is everything that's going to make you feel purposeful and happy in the church. And when that doesn't feel that way, you think there's something wrong with you. You think that you're failing in some way. And like, there would be moments I didn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't understand why there would be moments where, because Ben was the one I would vent to and I would just burst into tears around him being like, what am I good for? Like, why do I feel like I have nothing to offer? What outside of motherhood do I have to offer the world? Like, basically questioning, like, who am I? I don't even know who I am. Well, like, just sobbing to him and like, thinking, well, I'm a mother. Why is that not enough?

Margi Dehlin [00:44:50] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:44:50] But for me it, it was because later on, and we'll get into my deconstruction when I started following Julie Hanks, that this is her mantra. Motherhood is a relationship. It is not a role, and it is not an identity. But I thought it was a role. I thought it was an identity. And, and then you bring in the complexity of needing to teach the gospel in your home and that it's on your shoulders as a parent to help your children have a testimony and feeling that constant mom guilt over and over and over again, feeling like you're Just not doing enough. You're not being enough, and. And somehow you're just constantly failing. And I just felt that so much, and that was really hard for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:37] Yeah. Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:45:39] And then at the same time, still trying to find out how can my husband provide? And at the same time, seeing my friends being comfortable financially, and it's that. That security complex in me that I had, like, hang on. I did all the things. I served the mission. This could sound so rude, but, like, you didn't serve a mission. You weren't as strong as me, but yet you're sitting comfortable in your. Your big house with your children, and. And I'm in this rental stressing every day about what's gonna happen.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:14] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:14] And just feeling that so hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:17] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think. I mean, I relate to a lot of what you're saying, especially, you know, coming home from your mission. I remember. Didn't you say something like you felt like you didn't.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:32] There was an erasure.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:34] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:34] And the motherhood was another erasure.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:36] Yes. And I think that's the challenge of it, is where is the space in Mormonism's formula for women to actually come into their own, to have this sense of, like, you know, discovering themselves, developing themselves.

Justine Jalaff [00:46:54] I have to say, I've seen my friends try to do that, and I've seen them being put down by their husbands. That this is taking you away from the children. Right. I've seen that in multiple relationships. And it makes me so sad because I was very lucky that I always had a husband who told me, you want to do that? Go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:14] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:14] Like, I'll support you no matter what.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:16] Yep.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:17] You want to be this? You want to be that? Because there was a time where I was like, maybe I want to blog. Maybe I want to do this. Just something I was like, oh, but we don't. Money and. No, just go do it. If it makes you happy, if it fulfills you. He would. Ben would always tell me, go, do. And then I have friends who are like, oh, no. My husband said no.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:35] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:35] He doesn't want me to. And then you're like, that's. Where is the space? Because it will take you away from the children because your husband's working long hours on his career.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:47] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:47:48] And I personally think that the space only happens from those women who make it happen and fight for it to happen. And I give kudos to those women in the church who are able to do that, because I wasn't able to do that.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:01] Yeah. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:48:03] And I don't know how they do it, but I give you all the validation.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:07] Yep. I think this comes up a lot, too, with grief sometimes for women who end up having children when they're still kind of in a place of a conditioned mindset. And then later, when they leave the church, they realize, well, I made that choice, but it wasn't a conscious choice to have children or have five children, and I likely would have had two or if I had been in connection with myself and my ability and my desire and how I, you know, kind of showing up. And I think this is a really tough thing to grapple with, this idea of choice. But I was in a conditioned place when I made this choice. And it's almost like the life not lived in a way, but you're grappling with the consequences.

Justine Jalaff [00:48:57] And I was recently told by a. Sorry, I was recently told by a sibling because I was expressing just a hint of frustration that I'm feeling right now trying to find a career, that I shouldn't be resentful because I didn't want it. And I'm like, no, it's not that I didn't want it. I just was never given the tools to ask myself what I wanted.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:20] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:49:21] And I was told what I should want, and I was told what I should do to thrive here and be happy and fulfill my purpose.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:28] Yes.

Justine Jalaff [00:49:30] But no, it's not that I didn't want it. I just didn't. I was just doing what I was told, what I was told I should want.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:37] That's right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:40] Go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:40] Oh, this idea of informed consent, we talk about it a lot on Mormon stories, and a lot of times it's with truth claims. But I really feel strongly informed consent when it comes to, you know. And I realized within Mormonism, this idea of choosing to be a mother, it's questionable at best when you're, you know, told how you have value, and there's really only one way to have value. But ideally, informed consent for motherhood. Understand how what we ask our bodies to do when we become pregnant, when we deliver a baby, that for many bodies, they're never the same after that. For many women's mental health, they're never the same after that. Looking at a marriage to fully understand that when you look at happiness or contentment charts when it comes to partnerships, that there are serious dips when you introduce children. Like, it's a different thing when you know what you're choosing and your why and you're feeling like, I think with all that, I still want it. That's just a very different thing than the way we. We come about our realities as women in Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [00:50:57] And it's very complex because obviously you love your children.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:00] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:01] So much.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:02] That's right.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:03] You want to give them everything.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:05] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:05] You also have to be like, but what about me? I matter too. And I felt like in order to be a good mom, I had to give them everything, but there was nothing left for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:18] Right. That's right. I think that's part of the conditioning too though, is that the way we love is oftentimes to give of ourselves as opposed to the way we love is to actually honor ourselves as human beings, as moms, and that our children get to watch us do that. And we care for them too. But we don't do it at the cost of caring for ourselves, though.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:45] And I did. I did it at the cost of caring for myself.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:48] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:51:49] Because I didn't have the capacity to do both. I can only carry so much.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:54] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:51:55] Maven's making the point that to really have a choice, then all the options have to be okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:02] That's right. Equal value. We have equal value no matter what we choose. And that just is not the case.

John Dehlin [00:52:08] And then also she made the point that she and others are told that it's selfish in vain to want to pursue things that feel right to you if they're not motherhood. Right.

Justine Jalaff [00:52:21] I was told that I was. I did have that narrative that it was selfish to not want less than two to three children. To want less than two to three children. That's selfish. Or like, there was just a lot of pride in having the big Mormon family. And then I also, like, yeah, like, I remember walking with someone and their sister in law had left the church and divorced their brother, and she was living her life. And that person told me she's just being selfish. It's like, so it's selfish for women to want to do something for themselves away from their children. Why is that selfish? We are people too. But I just feel like in Mormonism, motherhood just becomes this identity that women in the church don't know how to get out of. They don't know how to escape it. And like, and let go of those feelings. Like, no, it's not selfish for me to have a hobby, for me to have a career, to put my kids in daycare, to let my husband be with my children. That's not selfish. And for me, I just could never let Ben play the role of being the dad. That's. That was the primary caregiver. I was always the primary caregiver. He was always secondary. And that pressure was always on me. Yeah, you need to be there for the children. They need you more. You're the nurturer, he's the provider.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:52] And I, and I've mentioned this before in past episodes, but there are some women who, if they even want to be mothers, they're going to actually be better mothers if they have a career. In other words, for some people, maybe a career would get in the way of being the best mom. For other women, they will be their best mom when they have a career.

Justine Jalaff [00:54:17] 150%.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:19] And children benefit. They benefit from seeing their moms actually live a fully embodied, self aware life where they're actually aware of what they need and they're meeting their needs. Like children benefit from that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:38] And with the economy the way it is today, in 2025, what woman, what Mormon woman is going to grow up and not need to be a financial provider for the family? Why wouldn't it be good for them to see their moms be financial providers as role models? Because they're certainly getting to be financial providers.

Justine Jalaff [00:54:59] Maybe your mom can stay home comfortably because her husband is a successful lawyer, doctor, entrepreneur, but who's to say that your daughter is not going to have to go and work?

Margi Dehlin [00:55:10] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:11] And I'm not saying that women have to have that pressure to go work just because they need to be an example to their daughter. But I think it is healthy to show them multiple avenues and possibilities. And for me, I had this weird mix of being a stay home mom is so crucial in the early years and then eventually you'll go and get a career.

John Dehlin [00:55:37] Yeah. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:38] So it wasn't completely erased getting a career. But that came once your youngest is in kindergarten or something.

John Dehlin [00:55:44] But that's Canadian. That's not Utah Mormonism, by the way.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:48] Yeah, that's maybe Canadians being a little more free or realistic.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] And it's more expensive. Canada is a little more expensive than the U.S. yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:55:57] Well, my, my mom, when I'm the youngest, so when I was grade 7 8, she went to college and learned how to use a computer. And then, and then when I was in high school, she got a diploma and became a library technician. And then when I was in university, she was in her mid-50s and she went to teachers college and became a teacher and then retired as a teacher. And that was what I thought I would eventually do, which is actually what I'm doing now.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:31] Thank you for sharing that.

John Dehlin [00:56:32] Yeah, thank you for Sharing. Okay, so before we start talking about the cracks, developing your respective Mormon testimonies or faith, were there any number of years where you both felt super good, like you were living the Mormon dream after your marriage?

Ben Jalaff [00:56:53] Yeah, we were.

John Dehlin [00:56:54] What I was expecting at least a couple years.

Justine Jalaff [00:56:56] We were trying really hard to live the Mormon dream.

John Dehlin [00:57:00] What was not working?

Justine Jalaff [00:57:02] Our finances.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:04] Honestly, there would be times that we would just be talking in the car and we'd be like, everything would be amazing if we just had money. Like, our life, our marriage is great. Our kids are awesome. We just need money. Like, literally, that's how it felt.

John Dehlin [00:57:19] And you mentioned both of you coming off your missions, thinking the Lord would provide kind of the prosperity gospel, lord is bound kind of thing.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:28] Yeah. So I just thought, it will come eventually. We're putting in our time.

John Dehlin [00:57:32] Yeah. It's like both of you, with your missions and marriage, you're just waiting for the payoff. What was the phrase you used about payoff or something? Something from your mission, Ben, get the cheese. Get the cheese. You were waiting for the Mormon cheese and you got the Mormon marriage, and the Mormon cheese didn't come.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:46] And we kept seeing people get the Mormon cheese.

Ben Jalaff [00:57:49] Yes.

Justine Jalaff [00:57:49] We never got the Mormon cheese.

Ben Jalaff [00:57:51] That's the thing that kind of bothered me is like, what is it that I'm doing now in my marriage that is not leading me to a success now? Right. Like, obviously, it's another layer in my life that kind of feels like is failing again. Right. And I'm not looking at who's guilty yet, but I'm certainly starting to feel like the more and more I run on this cartwheel. How much longer you want me to do this? You gotta tell me. Hey, look, after 20 minutes, you get off the car wheel and you lost two pounds. Good. That's the payoff. I just keep doing this with Mormonism. I'm not paying attention yet that that's what's happening. But I'm starting to feel exhausted, that no matter how much I push, I'm starting to feel like, where's the end goal?

Margi Dehlin [00:58:36] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [00:58:36] And Mormonism doesn't tell you an end goal. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:58:40] The end goal is after you die.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:41] But the payoff was our beautiful children,

John Dehlin [00:58:46] which you can have and not be Mormon.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:47] Exactly. But that's how we felt.

John Dehlin [00:58:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [00:58:50] Like, for me, I'm just like, eternal perspective. I'm going to be with this family when I die, constantly telling myself, eternal perspective, eternal blessings. Look for the blessings. Now there's a blessing in every situation. Trial and tribulation. We gotta learn something from this without actually just, like, analyzing. Maybe I should just, like, go work, and that would, like, really help things.

Starting to Question Church Membership

John Dehlin [00:59:15] Okay, so you started to get tired, running on the Mormon treadmill, wondering when you're gonna get the cheese. Yeah, wasn't coming.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:24] I think what it's leading up to is once I get married, it always goes back to the well and experience, to what I'm experiencing now outside of all of it. Like the example that I gave you guys. I got the main meal first, and then nothing good came after that. I think my Mormon dream happened when I was a teenager, and then as an adult, I couldn't see it in any other war that I'm going to. I'm not experiencing the same level of welcoming.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:53] You couldn't recapture it.

Ben Jalaff [00:59:54] The same level of validation that the people from Welland gave me, the leadership, the trust. Nothing was working to the point where I started to become exhausted and I started to overanalyze things. I'm starting to listen to things that maybe I'm not supposed to listen. You know, One of those things was my children. Once I'm starting to see my children come into my life, I started to ask myself, do I want my son to confess to a bishop that he has a pornography problem? That's when I start asking questions. Do I want my daughter, who has anxiety and ocd, had to face a bishop for whatever mistake she made? Same with my other son. That's the things that start grinding me now because I went through it. The anxiety levels of committing sin and not feeling like I fit. That's when things start grinding on me a little bit to the point where my cracks started to show on my mission. But as a father, I'm starting to see I'm running a lot. Do I want to get my kids to get on the treadmill on the hamster wheel again like me and run forever? That's when I started feeling a little bit. Then the LGTBQ thing started happening where I have a worker, the company that used to work, now I own it, and he's gay. And he comes to me and says, ben, how come, you know, when I talk to you about me being gay, you're so welcoming and you seem to be okay. But then the owner at the time of the company, who was also a member, didn't have the same view of that, and he felt odd about it. And I remember I couldn't answer that. Like, I just love everybody, regardless of what the church teaches. I couldn't explain it to him.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] You loved him in spite of the church.

Ben Jalaff [01:01:38] Yeah. And to me, that's something that is starting to feel weird in my insides. Why do I have to explain this to people where I don't feel this way? I started to become exhausted to the point that Justine one day, she asked me, ben, what happens if one of our kids is gay? I told her without hesitation, I'll leave the church with them because of what had happened to that investigator on my mission. My intuition told me once that it was wrong. If I see now my own kin going through that. For me, it's individual. I know some people make this choice to support their children and stay in the church. For me, I felt like I cannot tell my child that I love them and support them 100% when I'm in an organization that doesn't do the same for them. How can I do that? That's what started. And then Jeffrey R. Holland comes with this beautiful talk at BYU about the musket fire thing.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:43] Oh, are you being sarcastic?

Justine Jalaff [01:02:44] Yeah, he's being sarcastic. It was incredibly sarcastic because.

John Dehlin [01:02:48] Okay, so when he gave that talk, you were still an orthodox believer?

Ben Jalaff [01:02:51] I was still believing. And I remember the talk kept coming up on my social media outlets, and I'm not clicking because, again, trying to protect myself. Till one day I clicked on it and I listened to the whole thing, and I went straight to Justine and said, what the hell is this? This is an apostle saying these things.

John Dehlin [01:03:12] This is four years ago.

Ben Jalaff [01:03:13] Yeah. This is an apostle saying all these things. Wait a second. I don't know if this is feeling good now.

John Dehlin [01:03:19] And for those who don't know, basically Jeff Holland, one of the top ranking Mormon apostles, gave a speech at BYU where he had been president. I was at BYU when he was president of byu. But he basically tells BYU faculty and staff, we're being. I'm using my words, not his. We're being too friendly to gay and lesbian Mormons. We need more musket fire. We need BYU staff and faculty to oppose same sex marriage even though it's been legalized. And we need to be tough, you know, and defend what I would say is religious bigotry, defend our homophobia against lgbtq. And he also denounced a valedictorian, a gay valedictorian who came out. His name was Matt Easton. He came out in his valedictorian speech as gay. And then Elder Holland, an apostle of the church, denounced Matt Easton and said that was a really bad thing to do, to grandstand in a graduation speech and come out as gay. So it was a very homophobic thing for a man, anyone, to do. But for a leader of a global $300 billion church to do that, it was violent and mean. And I would say most people I know believe it tarnished Apostle Geoffrey Holland's legacy, whereas he was viewed favorably, generally by thoughtful Mormons. Now he knows that he ruined and tarnished his own legacy, painting himself as a bigot. And as I understand it, his health, physical health, crashed and has never recovered since the backlash. Because it got so bad that he was asked to give a graduation speech at, I think, Southern Utah University. And there was so much public protest that, you know, he ended up not giving that speech, claiming it was health problems. But no.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:27] Anyway, he was the general authority that Ben looked forward to hearing the most at General conference.

John Dehlin [01:05:32] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:33] So many of us felt that way.

John Dehlin [01:05:34] Oh, me too.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:35] It's Elder Holland. Get ready for it.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] He's one of the good ones, you know?

Ben Jalaff [01:05:38] Yeah, he was very animated. I think he spoke my language of being bold, and I like bold people. That's why I like Nick Jones. When he came here, that guy spoke with a lot of boldness. When I was looking at your episodes, that's what resonated. This guy's speaking with his heart on his sleeve. I like him.

Justine Jalaff [01:05:54] And we felt like that was Elder Holland. And then he comes out with this talk. Anyways, I wasn't part of this, but, yeah.

A Gay Friend's Departure Deepens the Doubts

Ben Jalaff [01:06:01] So I come to Justine, and Justine, still, I feel bad because I'm catching her off guard, but I'm telling Justine, like, this is not right now. I'm starting increase a level of anger now where I'm like, this guy shouldn't have said that. He's an apostle. And Justine recommends me to talk to my friend who at the time is a bishop. And I'm like, okay, yeah, maybe I can call him, because he can calm me down a little bit, because I was very upset.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:23] Actually, I did not recommend you. You kept saying I should talk to the bishop.

Ben Jalaff [01:06:26] Oh, is that what. Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:06:27] And I kept saying, why do you have to talk to him just because he's a bishop?

Ben Jalaff [01:06:29] I just. I just gave him a lot of respect, you know, And I thought that he could help me feel better. And then I asked him to come over to talk about it. And story short, that's the first time I heard that. Oh, yeah. I believe that being gay is a choice. When he told me that.

John Dehlin [01:06:45] A bishop tells you this?

Ben Jalaff [01:06:46] Yeah, when he told me that, I just. Wait a second. How do you know it's a choice? And he couldn't answer that. Like, are you kidding me? Wait a second. No. My level of respect dropped drastically. It shattered. Because now I'm walking home feeling like that didn't help. And now I have an apostles talk in my brain. Waking up something that has been dormant for a very long time. That if I ever see Jeffrey R. Holland face to face, I will say, hey, thank you because you woke me back. You woke that other person that took a nap for a while and woke up and realized, Ben is back. I'm ready to take the car for a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] Thanks, Jeff. Ben is back.

Justine Jalaff [01:07:32] And then that's when I started seeing angry more.

Ben Jalaff [01:07:35] Yeah. So my friends from Welland are still active at this point. I have a friend of mine, Jonathan Burton, goes to the same church with me in London and his wife Justine. And they will make this comment. You notice that every time you see Ben at church, he's always upset and angry. Like he's always here. Look. And they will make fun of that, thinking that it was just me just tired or whatever. No, it was just me starting to hear things differently and I was starting to feel it in my soul, what am I doing here? Like, and now it's conflicting because now I'm starting to feel like even people call me Brother Halaf. I'm like, it's Ben, not Brother Halaf. Because now I'm having this conflicting person conflicting with my Mormon me. And they're going ahead. And then out of nowhere, the first casualty of my group of friends from Welland leave the church. My friend Jonathan Medwin. Now when he leaves, that's a person that I could look at and realize, you know more than me because you're a studious guy in the gospel.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] He was super faithful.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:44] Oh, absolutely. Me and my friend Mario, the people that we saw last night, we're talking about him like, yeah, when he left, he ate cracked me up because we know how he is with the gospel.

Justine Jalaff [01:08:53] Yeah, he's the one you served with on your mission.

Ben Jalaff [01:08:55] Yeah. And for me that I became afraid because now I knew, okay, this is hitting now at home. And then after that, my friend Andrew leaves.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] Wait, did you ask, did you call him?

Ben Jalaff [01:09:09] Not yet. Oh, I called him when he left the church to assure him.

John Dehlin [01:09:12] When he left the church?

Ben Jalaff [01:09:13] Yeah, I called him and said, hey, look, Jonathan, I know you left the church, but please don't stop being my friend.

John Dehlin [01:09:19] But did you say why did you leave?

Ben Jalaff [01:09:20] No.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:21] Why not fear and not knowing that there was a why.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:27] No, I didn't ask him why.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] I never asked why. Whether Friends or family, even your brother, sibling, spouse, parents. Mormons never ask why when somebody leaves the church.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:39] We never asked why.

Ben Jalaff [01:09:40] I was terrified when I found out because I knew this guy's not an idiot. He knows the stuff you didn't want

John Dehlin [01:09:46] to know the idiot.

Justine Jalaff [01:09:47] We didn't want to know because you

Ben Jalaff [01:09:48] always know stories of people leaving the church. But then when it hits at home like that, now you know, like, there's something wrong here. Then one by one, another friend from Welland walks away. Andrew, who's also a spiritual giant at the time, walks away, and another walks away and another walks away. And now I'm seeing.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:05] It just kept going.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:06] It kept going through a whole year. People kept leaving, including my.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:10] Not just a year. It was like over a space of years.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:13] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:13] It's just like, oh, no, not him. Oh, no, not him. Oh, no, not him.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:18] It just became heavy to the point where, like, this is my whole entire. Well, in group gone.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:23] Which was your.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:24] My. It was my. What got me there.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:28] What got you there in the first place.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:30] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:31] So to me, I'm looking at like, wait a second, what are you guys doing? I stayed because of you.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:34] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:37] My whole life.

Ben Jalaff [01:10:38] Yeah. I made the decisions based on this because I saw you guys. Then when that happens, I have to

John Dehlin [01:10:44] ask, were they causing each other to leave? In other words, is it like a domino thing where one falls and it knocks over the next and knocks over the next, you're saying no.

Justine Jalaff [01:10:52] Had their individual experiences caused them to leave?

Ben Jalaff [01:10:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] Really?

Justine Jalaff [01:10:57] Yeah. None of them were corresponding with each other about it.

John Dehlin [01:11:01] Wow.

Ben Jalaff [01:11:02] I think that's powerful. It just individually kept happening. When my friend Jonathan and Justine left, those were the last two people, and they were in London, living in London when they left. I like, whoa, Okay. I lost all my friends that I truly love within that spectrum of Mormonism, because it goes back to the beautiful experience of Mormonism. They're all done. And now I'm left with what is not that great. And now I'm supposed to defend it. And what had happened was it came to a point in 2022. I'm going to get emotional here. Please bear with me, because this is. This is it right here.

John Dehlin [01:11:47] Emotions are appropriate.

Ben Jalaff [01:11:50] My cousin Claudia calls me and invites me to her wedding. Hey, Gordo, I want you to come to. You're my favorite cousin in Colombia. And I said, no, Claudia, I can come. I'm completely disconnected at this point with my family, extended and parents. I said, no. My parents call me, hey, Gordo, I'll pay for your ticket. I pay for everything. Come to the wedding. I said no. And I'm expecting Justine to side with me with the decision of me saying no. And I go back home ready to tell her how my parents are so irrational that I had to leave my business for a week to go to a wedding of a cousin I haven't seen in a while. And then I go home and I tell Justine, yeah, my parents want me to go to Colombia for Claudia's wedding. And Justine is like, you should go. You haven't seen your family in a while. You should go. I was caught off guard. Like, really? Yeah, go. I think you need it. So I said to myself, well, to protect myself from my family, I'll bring two friends. And the friends I pick were two ex Mormons, my friend Jonathan Medmun, and another person I can name because he told me not to.

John Dehlin [01:12:58] So these are Canadian.

Ben Jalaff [01:12:59] Canadian Mormons. Canadian Mormons from West who left the church. Who left the church.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] And you wanted two ex Mormon friends to come with you. Why?

Ben Jalaff [01:13:07] Because when my friend Jonathan Medwin left the church and my other friend left, my friendship with them changed and became better even when I was active.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] What?

Justine Jalaff [01:13:18] I need to point out something about Ben that's so incredibly amazing about him. Friendship to him is very important, and he is a very good friend. And when he lost these people from they chose to walk away. His first response was to call them and tell them, hey, I love you. Don't think I don't want to, like, let's still be friends. Of course, he didn't ask why, but still was. But that was enough for them that, no, he still wants to be our friend.

Ben Jalaff [01:13:53] The relationship, yeah, I didn't want to lose it because I was holding them there. They're my family. The Welland guys are brothers to me till this day. They are like a brotherhood to me. And now they're gone. And I don't want to lose the brotherhood, no matter what. So I asked these two ex Mormon kids to come with me. Donovan and my other friend who drink and. Who drink and do all these things. So I asked them to come. They said yes right away. And we go to Colombia. Remember what Jeffrey R. Holland had done? I woken up. The other Ben, the other Ben is still there. When I go to Colombia, guess who's back home? Ben Benjamin from Venezuela. He's back home. Mormon Ben, who was created in Canada, is no longer in power. As soon as I step foot in Colombia, I fell at home. My vulnerability that I saw in Wellen when I like the big Mormon family Dream and all that. And all of a sudden, hey, I have a family too. My blood. They're here and they're happy to see me. And what came to a head was, we went to the Walled City, which is downtown Cartagena, big dancing party. And I see my mom and dad having fun with my two ex Mormon friends, having a drink and having fun. And I'm sitting at a table with a cup of water and realizing, why is the church teaching me that they're committing sin? And my Mormon, me comes out and says, because they are Ben. And my other person said, fuck you. Ben said that you are done.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:38] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:15:39] And that's when I looked at my parents for the first time as my own. Because I saw that with my two close friends and realized, they're mine people. They are mine. And all the years of suppressing my own culture, Mi cultura yon my love for my tricolor. And I saw. I felt that I was back. And sorry. I went back to that hotel that day, and my two friends are at the balcony, and I walk for the first time. And I asked straight up to Jonathan, why do you leave the church? And he tells me later, when you ask, it wasn't you. It was someone else we'd never seen before. Why do you leave the church? And I want to say this with all the resounding power I have within me for the things that Brad Wilcox says, Russell M L Ballard, and all the apostles that claim that there's anti Mormon people out there ready to blabber this to people. My friend said nothing to me. He said, ben, you don't need to know this. You have a happy marriage with a beautiful family. You know what we want from you? Validation. That's all we want. He didn't say a single thing. Now, what? Brad Wilcox says that. Oh, it's popular on TikTok and it's fun to do. Oh, because of YouTube and all that? No, he didn't say anything. Which says a lot, because now I go to bed thinking he knows something that he's not even willing to tell me. Because of her, because of my family.

Justine Jalaff [01:17:40] He didn't want to destroy a family.

Ben Jalaff [01:17:42] He did not want to destroy that. But he knew this dude is ready to hear it. And he told my friend, don't say anything. Two months later, we're going to a concert. And I voiced this question differently to them. I'm going to ask you a question very differently, and I want you to be honest with me. I'm happily married with Justine. Okay? But you guys know Justine is cheating on me and is lying.

John Dehlin [01:18:14] It's a hypothetical.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:16] Hypothetical.

Justine Jalaff [01:18:17] Sorry, this is an analogy.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:21] Yeah. So I asked my friend Jonathan this, and he says this to me, and I said, is that the church? Is the church cheating on me? And he said. He laughed. And he said, yep. Yeah, it is. And then I asked again, so what is it that I should look? And I said, nope. I learned a long time ago that the term anti Mormon is what I'm about to tell you. So guess what? You begin your own thing, and then I'll talk to you when you're on the saddle. He didn't say anything, but he didn't

Justine Jalaff [01:18:56] want to be the cause of a consequence.

Ben Jalaff [01:18:58] Yeah, he didn't want me to know, but he did say this. When you go back home from the concert, there's a book on my shelf, if you're curious. I'm leaving it up to you to pick it up and read it. And that book was Rough Storm Rolling. Now Go home from the concert.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:14] One thing he wanted to emphasize to you, this is actually an active member who wrote this book.

Ben Jalaff [01:19:18] No, he didn't say that at first. What he told me was, when you pick up the book, make sure you Google the author and make sure you know who he is. Okay. And then I did that. We came home from the concert at 2 in the morning and I didn't go to bed till 6. I felt like I had whipped the door open and found Justine with someone else, feeling that she was cheating on me.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:40] Betrayal.

Ben Jalaff [01:19:40] But betrayal. Yeah, I felt like, whoa, the Rock in the Hat.

Justine Jalaff [01:19:49] That was the first thing you read?

Ben Jalaff [01:19:51] That crazy guy from Lethbridge and the Rock in the Hat? Yeah, among other things, I read. I went downstairs because I hear my friend downstairs taking the dogs out. And then Jonathan asked me, hey, you read the book? I did. What do you think? I'm fucked. And he looked at me, he's like, I'm sorry, man. Like, what do I do about her? What do I do about Justine now? And he looks at me, he's like, justine loves you. Whatever decision you make, okay, just make sure you know what you're doing. Because he said when I left, I left, completely unhinged of anger, now about to drive home to see Justine.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:42] And it was a Sunday, and we went to church.

Ben Jalaff [01:20:44] It was a Sunday. We were going to church.

Justine Jalaff [01:20:45] Yeah.

Discovering Troubling Church History

John Dehlin [01:20:47] Can I ask a quick question about that? So I, like, I would. So Rough Stone Rolling, for those who don't know, is written by a Mormon patriarch, which is a very high level former stake president, former Patriarch, very faithful Mormon historian who was a professor at Columbia University, went to Harvard. Brilliant guy, but very faithful. I read Fawn Brodie's no Man Knows My History as my first major Joseph Smith biography, and that was also written by a Mormon, but it's viewed as an anti Mormon book, even though it's very accurate. So when I read Rough Stone Rolling, I viewed it as like an apologetic book, like a book that was trying to be faithful, that was trying to keep people in the church. So it's really weird for me to hear that someone would read Rough Stone Rolling and it would cause them to question the church or lose their testimony since it was written by a faithful Mormon trying to keep people in the church. So what in the world was so disturbing about Rough Stone Rolling when it was written by a faithful Mormon to keep you in the church?

Ben Jalaff [01:21:58] My dad taught me when I was younger that a lying is a thief.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:04] A liar is a thief.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:05] A liar is a thief. In Venezuelan culture, spanking is a thing. You get spanked. And one of the sins that will lead my parents to spank me was lying. So I knew that liars are thieves. For me, the very first thing I read was the stone in the hat. When I read that and takes me back to my mission and realize the feelings that we all, as missionaries had towards that guy.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] And those who haven't seen the first episode, you told the story of a guy that made fun of you as a Mormon missionary because Joseph Smith, according to him, translated the Book of Mormon with the stone in the hat. You had not believed him. Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:22:50] And then consequently the missionaries in turn made fun of that guy.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:53] Yeah, we make fun of him because

Justine Jalaff [01:22:55] they thought he was just making up stuff.

Ben Jalaff [01:22:57] So for me, that's a strike one. And for me that was enough because now I know. What else are you not telling me then? Because that's to me, you breached me now. What else have you? And then I kept going. Then the polygamy thing comes up. Nick?

John Dehlin [01:23:15] Yeah. Your friend again in last episode, your friend brings up polygamy to you.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:19] So I'm going back. Not only that, the multiple versions of the first mission, my mission, which version did I taught then?

John Dehlin [01:23:28] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:28] Of the many that are here, Joseph Smith was actually educated. Not an educated person. And I didn't know what he was doing. But we see movies where their love is like the biggest example of love.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] But he was lying about his.

Ben Jalaff [01:23:47] But he was lying. Yeah, among other things. I just kept reading. And to me, all my friends said this. They always said this to me. If we tell Ben these things he's done. My friends knew that I already will be prying. If this information comes out, I'll be done. Not only that, though, but then I later find out that day that there's a thing called Gospel topic essays that Sunday. You see what I mean?

John Dehlin [01:24:15] I've been around for like five years by that point.

Ben Jalaff [01:24:17] You see what I mean? Like, to me, for a guy that has been running so hard to achieve the Mormon success, and now I'm finding out that everything I'd done, you lied about it or withhold or withheld from me, who's been struggling to survive this bubble. And I'm not safe from myself now because now Mormon Ben is declining very fast and the other one is coming out, and the other one that comes out is very pissed off of all the things he lost. And now what about her? Because I love Justine so much that this crisis began, but I shut up about it and suffer on my own. I study on my own. I read the Book of Mormon for the first time in a long time by myself, on my work truck. And as I'm reading the book, I hear the beautiful thing in the sarcastic, by the way, beautiful thing that says the lemonades are among the main ancestors of the Native Americans. Now, what is said on my. I remember went back to the house and look at my Book of Mormon from the mission. They're the main. I'm seeing principal ancestors.

Justine Jalaff [01:25:41] I'm like, what?

John Dehlin [01:25:42] Not among. In other words, when the church, Mormon Church always taught that Latin Americans and Pacific Islanders were Lamanites or descendants of Laman and Lemuel from the Book of Mormon, dark skinned because of their wickedness. Once DNA evidence came out in the early 2000s, and the church knew that it was in trouble because what it had been teaching, what the Book of Mormon taught and what the members have been teaching and prophets have been teaching for almost 200 years about, you know, Native Americans being descendants of the Lamanites who were Israelis, according to the Book of Mormon. Once the church knew that that was no longer true, it threw the word among in the introduction to the Book of Mormon to cloud the issue so that people would not necessarily, going forward, expect Lamanites to have Israelite DNA, because DNA was showing the Native Americans came from Asia, not the Middle East. So DNA was disproving the Book of Mormon. And so the church kind of slid among into the title so that they could Principle. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:26:49] So they took that word out.

John Dehlin [01:26:50] Yeah, yeah. So to me, without really telling the membership what they were doing right no, no.

Ben Jalaff [01:26:55] And the biggest difference for me as what? I will look at a member of the church that was born in the church. I will look at that and try to mental gymnast that in their heads, like, no, there must be something wrong. No, I didn't grow up in it. Because now, again, like, I know that you have lied. Now. There's no mental gymnastics for me. For me, it's just like, no, no, no, no. You lie, it's over. I serve a mission. I serve a mission. I didn't teach this. I didn't teach it.

John Dehlin [01:27:24] The church made you a liar, which is verse.

Ben Jalaff [01:27:26] I went and lied. It took my two years of my life that my parents taught me on to preach a lie. How do you quantify that and be okay with that and sit in mental gymnastics? Exactly. What? Because. Let's do this. I read the apologetics. That still doesn't fix the fact. If I told somebody I'm teaching that the church is to be racist. That might have been a shellbreaker already on a lesson, but I didn't do that. If I went and told an investigator and then Joseph Smith put a rock in hand and translator, that might have been a shellbreaker. Then instead you're committing people to pay tithing and to be in this church with no information that is accurate, who does that fall into? Me. I did that. I feel like an asshole. And I cannot withhold my anger because I wasn't born in this church. And I will say it right now, I have my freedom twice, and I gave it away twice to be a Mormon, because I perceived that it was the best world that was given to me. But if you're asking me to do so much and you couldn't be forward with me, couldn't be honest, why do I have to give you a pass? But I have to because of her. Because that now to me is just how do I compute her? Because I love her and my three kids. That's why Jonathan didn't say anything, because of them. Now this is what do I do? I know that I said I don't want to mention this, but I will because it's part and it's real. I was hyperventilating to my friends. I couldn't talk. So I smoke weed so I can calm down and I know my parents are going to be like, upset about this, but I have to. I couldn't control my emotions because I was hyperventilating. Guess what? Three months later, it didn't help. It wasn't fixing.

Navigating Faith Crisis Within the Marriage

Justine Jalaff [01:29:40] You were hyperventilating because you Thought I might leave you.

Ben Jalaff [01:29:43] Yeah, that real aspect. And I'm not listening to Mormon stories yet, but I'm listening to videos of people that. That have been divorced because they were in a fake crisis.

Justine Jalaff [01:29:54] Because once again, there's that insecurity coming out in our marriage of him thinking he's not going to be good enough and he's going to lose me.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:02] It was the worst year of my life. And I came from Venezuela to Canada and I had nothing. And I sat in front of a judge that told me, you can stay, you can go, you can stay, you can go. Feeling like I was going to get deported. But 2023 was the hardest year of my life because of what I found out.

John Dehlin [01:30:23] It was two years ago.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:24] Dude. And I read the book A Standard of Truth. And I felt like a little kid reading that book.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] Why?

Ben Jalaff [01:30:30] Because it was written for a child. That's not our book, our heritage that I read before my mission. It's talking to me like, please, can somebody in the church tell me I have a stupid face? Because if you told me, Ben, you just have a stupid face. Oh, I get it. That's why you lied to me. I get you.

John Dehlin [01:30:47] That's why you wrote Saints.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:48] That's why. Oh, I get it. You guys think I'm an idiot.

Justine Jalaff [01:30:51] Stupid.

Ben Jalaff [01:30:51] I just wrote, you are so slow in here. Oh, I get it, Justine. I'm slow in there. That's why they wrote the book for me. But I just. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:31:02] Authors of Saints I just read.

Ben Jalaff [01:31:05] Because when I decided to step away, I decided, I'm going to do this according to what the church is teaching me. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon and see what happens. Read it. Nothing happened. Never really did. I read the book Saints that confirmed everything I had read on the gospel topic. Essays. The more and more I did the correct thing. I started listening to conference talks and he got. Oh, there's a fear mongering. Oh, that's how you get me to be scared. All of that stuff, one after another. And then that summer, I told myself, I'm not losing my family over this. I'm just going to shut up about it and keep my marriage intact and pretend I'm okay.

John Dehlin [01:31:44] Meaning you're hiding from your wife.

Ben Jalaff [01:31:46] Oh, yeah. She doesn't know anything.

John Dehlin [01:31:47] And I don't want to say that's lying, but a believing spouse can feel like they've been deceived or lied to when they learn that their questioning spouse hid things from them. So again, it's the church putting you in the Position of appearing like a liar.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:03] Yeah, except that person can't win because then when they try to tell their spouse, sometimes their spouse doesn't want to

John Dehlin [01:32:09] hear it and might leave them.

Justine Jalaff [01:32:11] And might leave them and take the kids. Yes. I think that there's no winning.

Ben Jalaff [01:32:14] When I decided to be quiet about it during that summer, I had my friend Justine Burton told me that, hey, there's a podcast, Ben, that could help you calm down. Because she knew I was struggling, and she told me, you should listen to Mormon stories. These are stories of people that are going through the same thing as you, and it can help you out because you seeing like you have no direction, because I'm finding things from a left and right. And then I started listening to Mormon stories and the LDS discussions with Mike, and it was like you had mentioned

John Dehlin [01:32:48] what you thought about me and Mormon

Ben Jalaff [01:32:50] stories when you first watched in 2022, when I started to struggle after Columbia, I came across your podcast, and then I watch you for five minutes, and my Mormon brain was still trying to protect me and thought, what?

Justine Jalaff [01:33:02] And said, oh, it was a douchebag. John's a douchebag.

Ben Jalaff [01:33:06] Oh, this guy's a douchebag. Yeah. I just thought that it was too fast for me to listen to that yet. But when Justine said that Mormon stories, it glued me in. Oh, yeah. I tried to give this guy an opportunity. Maybe I'll do it again. And that's when I go in, like, LDS discussions is like somebody grabbing my Mormon life and throw it on the ground like a puzzle. And all of a sudden, you came with Mike and you start putting it together in front of me. And when that is happening right in front of my eyes, The more and more I realize, what am I gonna do with Justine? How long do I hide this?

Justine Jalaff [01:33:51] And there's so much. How do I even begin to share it with her?

Ben Jalaff [01:33:55] So I will go to bed and I will grunt because I'm trying to get Justine to ask me, are you okay? I'm like, Ms. Justine, are you okay, Ben? Hey, can I ask you a question? If there was a big battle in Hill Cumorah, how come there's no bones? And just trying to get a reaction, and just, how come there's no evidence, no bones, no salt, no nothing?

Justine Jalaff [01:34:16] I was a very good apologetic, by the way. I said, because there's two hills.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:20] I didn't know about that.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:21] And we don't know where the other one is.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:23] There's two Hill Cumorahs. And I'm like, wait, what? So I was confused. She didn't answer the question.

John Dehlin [01:34:29] There's one in Latin America, and then there's the one in New York.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:31] There's a hill, Cumorah, in Palmyra, where we went and saw the pageant, but that's too small for all those battles. So obviously there's another hill that we

John Dehlin [01:34:38] don't even know, that somehow the plates were magically turning.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:42] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:34:42] And come on, if God can take the plates away, then. And we have to experience everything by faith, then maybe he'll take all that evidence away too, because we have to walk by faith.

Ben Jalaff [01:34:52] Yeah, I remember. And then other nights, I will try to instigate a conversation. I asked Justine, like, hey, you know, I'm a little confused, because why does Laban have to get his head chopped off? Out of nowhere, Violence, right in the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Why can't you just stab him? No. Chop his head off, like, flat out in there. Things like that are starting to hit me hard. I'm like, I'm not getting it. I'm not computing this. Something is off. And I'm trying to get Justine to talk to me about it. Nothing. Justine would not give me a single thing until General Conference of that year. Because it was during the Blue Jays were making a huge playoff push. And I told Justine, hey, look, I'm not gonna watch an old conference today. I'm gonna watch the Blue Jays, and I'll watch conference after the game. And I can see. I go outside. Cause I'm watching my children play outside, and I'm watching the baseball game on my phone. And Justine is inside the house watching your conference. And Justine is watching a talk. And I don't know where she gets off and turns the TV off and goes to the kitchen.

John Dehlin [01:36:00] In the middle of conference, in the middle of conference, she turns off conference.

Ben Jalaff [01:36:03] She turns it off. And I'm like, ooh, what just happened? My through me. My through person's like, this is it time to talk? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Not yet. She turns it off. I'm not asking. And then that night, I felt what you will, quantified as the spirit. I felt something in my bosom. Hey, Ben, you should watch an all conference. It's really good. And I felt like, great. My questions will be answered.

Justine Jalaff [01:36:33] Yeah. He thought this was his last after. After doing all that. He was so desperate to, like, keep his marriage and stay that Mormon Ben that I chose to marry in the temple, that he was just trying to pull at anything he could. And so he thought that that was a spiritual Prompting, telling him I need to listen to general confidence and this will help me get over all this stuff.

Ben Jalaff [01:36:59] This is it. Like when I, when I felt that I'm like, good, this is going to fix everything and I can move on. Before I watch an old conference, I wrote a message to all my friends. I know about my faith crisis. And I told them, hey, I know the church has a lot of holes, but I love it and I'm going to stay. I practically told them. And all my friends said, ben, don't worry about it, we love you. Make your best decision. Very supportive.

Justine Jalaff [01:37:20] You said, I'm going to stay for

Ben Jalaff [01:37:21] my family, I'm going to stay for my family. And they all supported me, all the people that had left. And then I went to work to watch an all conference and I have a writing more when I just stand up and write and I put my headphones on and I started listening. And one after another, Elder Godoys talk about me being the weak link of the chain because I'm doubting and questioning. So now he's attacking me and my faith crisis. And then I have Elder Anderson gives a talk about my country where he's explaining this faith promoting story of a family in Venezuela that, oh, back in the day, Venezuela used to experience a lot of electricity problems. And when the lights go off, people will go out and ransack the bakeries. And there's a faithful member that had a bakery and he was afraid for the bakery, oh, it's going to get ransacked. And then all of a sudden he goes to his business and finds out that the bakery was not ransacked, that it was intact, but everything else was destroyed.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:27] Everyone else's business and everybody else's business

Ben Jalaff [01:38:29] is destroyed, but his and his kid tells him, oh, that is because you pay tithing. And here I am thinking, hold on, stop. So God favor you because you pay him. What about the people around you that don't know about tithing? But then yet God got so mad because they didn't pay him that he destroyed everything else but your bakery.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:51] Or let it happen.

Ben Jalaff [01:38:52] Or let it happen. How's that faith promoting? That sounds awful. That sounds terrible.

Justine Jalaff [01:38:59] That was the talk. I think I got up and turned off.

Ben Jalaff [01:39:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:02] Oh, you didn't like it?

Justine Jalaff [01:39:03] No, because in that same general conference, I can't quite remember, but that talk about tithing was shared. And then literally two talks later, someone gets up and says, we can't treat tithing like fire insurance. Tithing is a faith promoting thing. But Elder Anderson just treated it like Fire insurance. Why are you contradicting each other? Fleece full out in the same conference.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] So were you? Well, even though you were.

Justine Jalaff [01:39:33] I was still active.

John Dehlin [01:39:34] Yeah. No, even though you were sort of, like, being apologetic whenever Ben was bringing doubts or questions to you, were you having your own doubts in parallel?

Justine Jalaff [01:39:46] Yeah, I mean, we'll get to that. But I was starting to be okay. Questioning the leaders at that point and acknowledging they weren't perfect.

John Dehlin [01:39:57] Okay. Okay. All right.

The Think Celestial Talk and Further Doubts

Ben Jalaff [01:39:59] To put a cherry on the top of the ice cream. Then the Think Celestial talk comes.

John Dehlin [01:40:04] Okay. Never. Mormons are going to not know what that is.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:07] Yeah. The Think Celestial talk is a talk by the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ, Lottery Saints, and he essentially talks about how you need to have a. A view of eternity and not lose sight of that. But then what bothered me from that talk is that he's counseling the members and tell them, do not counsel with those who do not believe.

John Dehlin [01:40:30] Don't ask advice. If your family and friends aren't Mormon, you should never ask them advice.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:34] Don't talk to your own kids. Don't talk to your own friends.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:37] For me, don't talk to your own parents.

John Dehlin [01:40:39] Maybe because they're not faithful Mormons.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:41] Yeah, he told me that I couldn't talk to Justine, and he told me.

Justine Jalaff [01:40:46] No, he told. He was telling me that I couldn't talk to Justine.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:50] Listen to me.

John Dehlin [01:40:50] That's right.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:52] And then that talk also said, don't talk to my own parents.

John Dehlin [01:40:56] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [01:40:57] He's pinning me against my people and my family. And to me, that was it.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:04] Because Ben is back.

Ben Jalaff [01:41:06] Yeah. It was one of those things where, like, I'm done now. I don't know what to do. And I literally just felt like, okay, it's a matter of time. What I do here is I need to find a perfect way to tell Justine what I'm gonna do. And Justine has said something to me later that week that set me off to say something to her. She said, where's my happy Ben? When she said that, I knew she knows something's up. I need to talk to her.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:38] Did you know something was up?

Justine Jalaff [01:41:39] Oh, yeah. Not to that extent, though.

John Dehlin [01:41:42] So now, that was beautiful, by the way, Ben. Thank you for sharing all of that. So now where do you want to. Do you want to take us back in your story, or do you just want to pick up?

Justine Jalaff [01:41:52] I want to take.

John Dehlin [01:41:52] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:53] I want to go back.

John Dehlin [01:41:53] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:41:56] So I think I want to go back to the first time someone in my life left the church, and that was when I was When Ben and I were living in Alberta before we moved back to Ontario, we hung out with a good friend of mine that I made in ysa, and her and her husband were really good couple friends with us. And she was one of those friends that I felt in Alberta that I really clicked with and that maybe she's the friend that I've always been looking for in Mormonism, because I struggled beyond my never Mormon friend Shannon to find that same type of friendship within Mormonism. And so I found, like, I found that with her in ysa, that friendship was only for six months because then I went on my mission. And while I was on my mission, she married her husband. And while I was on my mission, she sent me a letter telling me how, how much she struggled with the endowment. Like, she really, really struggled with it. And she hadn't served a mission, so she did her endowment, like the day before her wedding or something like that. And she came out of the endowment wondering if she should even continue getting married. And I'm not gonna go too much into that because that's her story. And I don't know all the details, but, but she ended up staying in the church. She ended up getting married in the temple to her husband. And then I came home from my mission, married Ben. Ben and I moved back out to Alberta, and we started hanging out with them while they were still active. But while we were hanging out with them, they were questioning the church. And while we were hanging out with them, she so bravely, because she valued my friendship, she, she waited. She, we specifically organized a night to hang out with each other, just me and her, and she sat me down and she told me she was leaving the church. And she told me it was because of a bunch of things. And her husband had learned about something at school and about the, about the Book of Abraham and her stuff with the, with the endowment. And that's all I really remember. I'm sure she told me more things, things, but that was the first time I ever experienced someone leaving the church, ever. And I was able, of course, I was very like, testimony. Like, I, I, I, I regret this, but I did bear my testimony to her, but at the same time, I told her, but you're my friend, and our friendship's never going to change. And then I ended up moving back to Ontario and ended up continuing to invest in that friendship long distance.

John Dehlin [01:44:52] Was this before you were married?

Justine Jalaff [01:44:54] This was while I was married.

John Dehlin [01:44:55] Okay, okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:56] Yeah. Like, we were couple friends while we were married.

John Dehlin [01:44:59] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:44:59] Like, bang. Really got along with her. Husband.

John Dehlin [01:45:02] And then how many years into your marriage would this have been?

Justine Jalaff [01:45:04] That was like one year into our

John Dehlin [01:45:06] marriage, so really early in your marriage.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:07] Yeah, we both had our babies around the same time.

John Dehlin [01:45:10] Okay, okay. And so you kind of would have noted that, but then maybe put it on a shelf.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] As we say in Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [01:45:18] Yeah. Like, because for me, like, I connected with her so well in Mormonism because I saw myself in her. She was strong like me, committed like me, had a testimony like me, but she was also fun loving and enjoyable and had an amazing personality. And so I just connected so well with her. And. And so. And like, her husband was a returned missionary and he was always so cheerful in the church and gung ho. And he actually came to my endowment before I went to my miss. And then I never saw it coming. And then all of a sudden they were leaving the church. And that really threw me for a loop at the time. But of course, I never asked her. She did try to explain to me why. But her leaving the church wasn't because of the truth claims. It was because of her initial experience with the endowment and what happened after that.

John Dehlin [01:46:07] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:08] So anyways. But I give myself props because I continued to be her friend. And I found out after I left the church when I talked to her that I was the only. Only person who did that for them. Which shocks me.

John Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah. Oh.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:22] I mean, doesn't shock me at the same time.

John Dehlin [01:46:24] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:46:25] Even though I thought I handled it poorly because I, like, bore my testimony. But it was because I. And like, I would. I would met. We would video chat with each other when I was still in Ontario, even despite her leaving the church, like, because it was like a genuine friendship anyways, so that was like, kind of like, I think maybe my first tiny little crack. And then being married to Ben, this is really hard to speak to because. No one's flat out came out and said it. But sometimes I wonder if people think I left the church because of Ben and that it's his fault that I left the church. And I think that people have thought that, which I take offense to, because that. What do I not have a brain? But. But I know that being married to Ben opened me up for critical thinking because Ben looked at things different and he. He questioned things and he looked at things differently, and he would get upset about things that I wouldn't necessarily get upset about. And so it. Because of that, I. I don't look at as a bad thing. I look at it as he was introducing critical thinking into my life.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:56] So,

Justine Jalaff [01:47:58] yeah, so anyways, I'm seeing all these people that were so influential in Ben's life leaving the church. I'm seeing my good friend, who's married to his good friend Justine Burton, leave the church. And you still don't question it. But at the same time, during COVID for some reason, I think a lot of people experienced this. Covid was that time to maybe reflect and maybe if you had a hard time with some things before, it was that time to truly maybe analyze or critique. Probably because you were taking a break from the institution.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:41] Right.

Justine Jalaff [01:48:42] You weren't going every Sunday. And that was the first time that I ever actually allowed myself to read more diverse voices online. And so I came across Julie Hanks, and for the first time in my life, I heard the words purity culture is rape culture. And I was like, say what? What do you mean by that? Purity culture? First of all, I don't think I had ever even heard that term. And wait a second. You're an active Mormon therapist and you're saying purity culture is rape culture, but then you're also saying motherhood is a relationship, not a role. Like, she's just saying all these things. I was like, crack. Crack. Like, what is. And you're active. I. I was entering the world of nuanced, progressive Mormonism that I never knew existed before.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] Yeah. Did you watch Julie Hinks's stuff?

Justine Jalaff [01:49:37] No, it was just, like, random posts that I would read. I never watched her stuff.

John Dehlin [01:49:42] And did you. Did you that. That comment about rape culture? Was that the word used?

Margi Dehlin [01:49:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:49] Like, did you learn about that and process it to understand what I started

Justine Jalaff [01:49:53] doing was reading the comments.

John Dehlin [01:49:55] Okay. And.

Justine Jalaff [01:49:56] And I would read the comments of these posts that. Declaring these things that I'd never heard before. And it was active Mormons, like, agreeing or active Mormons getting really upset. But then I was reading ex Mormon comments, and it was like, starting to break my brain down because I'm like, hang on. Why are Mormons so angry? Why are people arguing? Why is no one on the same page about this? I don't understand. Why are we not on the same page? If this is the one true gospel, we should all be on the same page. Why are active Mormons disagreeing with other act of Mormons? I don't get this.

John Dehlin [01:50:35] Did it register with you at the time that Julie Hanks was the daughter of Lex de Azevedo?

Justine Jalaff [01:50:40] I don't even know who that is.

John Dehlin [01:50:41] He was the. He was the one who wrote Saturday's Warrior?

Justine Jalaff [01:50:45] Nope.

John Dehlin [01:50:45] So Julie Hanks is the daughter of the man who wrote Saturday's Warrior, which was the musical your family was based on.

Justine Jalaff [01:50:52] You can call that irony or you can call that meant to be. But she was the first voice online that I read, so I'm the first

John Dehlin [01:50:58] person to tell you that right now. You didn't even know that?

Justine Jalaff [01:51:00] Nope. I knew she was, like, a singer, and I only found that out recently.

Ben Jalaff [01:51:04] There's so many first with Mormon stories, man.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:08] Also detached from that Utah culture. Yeah, yeah, I just had that VHS in my basement.

John Dehlin [01:51:14] Her dad's Lexi Azevedo, and he is the main writer of Saturday's Border.

Justine Jalaff [01:51:17] Okay. Yeah, well, she definitely didn't internalize the same things I did. So anyways. But I didn't really continue following her too much. But then it, like, led me to. Because, like COVID 19, we were all on social media so much more than normal. And our lives had much, so slowed down so much. We had the time, like, I remember my hand would fall asleep from holding my phone because I was on it so much. And I came across the Ex Mormon account, Dear Mormon Me, which is just like, illustrations and it's anonymous. And I started reading some of her posts, and I once again started reading the comments and seeing these contradictory views over and over and over again. Then I came across, because we have a subscription to Disney plus, which I think also in the States is Hulu, we came across. I went and star became a thing, like the star category with the movies, the more adult, like, stuff on Disney plus. And I was like, just scrolling through the movies on there, and I came across Mormon no More, which is the documentary about that. These two women, Sal and Lena, who

John Dehlin [01:52:31] we've had on Mormon stories, who are two Mormons who married men and then after multiple kids, both realized they were lesbian, fell in love with each other, ended up getting divorced from their husbands.

Justine Jalaff [01:52:44] And I watched that whole thing as an act of Mormon. And oh, here's another thing I didn't mention. When we moved back to London, there had been a big exodus of about three. Three families who left the London ward because of the CES letter. So this was in 2015. We came back to. We moved to London and discovered that these three families had read a book called the CES Letter and that this had caused them to leave the church. And so that was the first time I ever heard about the CES Letter. And I carried that information and that book title in my head the since then. And there were a couple times where I googled CES Letter. And I think it was one time during COVID I googled CS Letter because I heard them talking about it on Mormon no More. And I googled CS Letter and I saw his webpage and this is my Mormon brain protecting myself. I saw that he was charging for the book. Meanwhile, if you keep scrolling, you'll get a free PDF version. But at the top he's charging for the book. And I was like priestcraft, I remember

Ben Jalaff [01:53:56] when I found out about Jeremy Runnels, he had a lisp because I didn't know that he had a hearing problem, but I didn't even get to that. Cause I heard him had a lisp. And I quantify that as I don't believe you. You sound odd.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:10] Oh, and another thing that came out online and I can't remember when was the ordained woman no more or was it ordained woman no more. So Mormon no more ordained woman with Kate Kelly and she was on social media and I remember mocking her her appearance. So anyways, because you're protecting yourself.

John Dehlin [01:54:33] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:34] Your brain is protecting yourself from the impending faith crisis. And so I. So I'm googling CS letter and I'm like, faith Priestcraft, he's charging money.

John Dehlin [01:54:45] Like Mormon apostles don't charge for their books.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:48] What do I know?

Ben Jalaff [01:54:48] I don't know, John.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:50] I didn't know any of that stuff.

John Dehlin [01:54:52] Those are the bestseller, best selling books. That does right Book are Mormon prophets.

Justine Jalaff [01:54:56] So I never read the CS letter, but it was in my brain. Oh, and then I started listening to the questions from a closet podcast, which

John Dehlin [01:55:06] is Charlie Bird and Ben Shalotti, two gay Mormons who were BYU at the time. They've since Ben's left to go to UVU because he had such a horrible time as a gay employee of BYU that he had to leave and go to uvu. Charlie Byrd was Cosmo the cougar mascot at byu. He since has married his husband. And somehow they're still active faithful Mormons in good standing. But both in effect have left orthodox Mormonism in some way or another. But at the time they were still trying to be faithful, devout gay Mormon men.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:43] They haven't left Mormonism. No, they're still in.

John Dehlin [01:55:46] Yeah, yeah, I meant devout faithful Mormonism because you can't be same sex Mormonism.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:51] Yeah, they're nuanced and progressive.

John Dehlin [01:55:52] Yeah, that's right.

Justine Jalaff [01:55:53] Yeah. But still faithful. But that brings me back to rewind a little bit. When we moved to London, Proposition 8 was happening and we were so displaced from the states. Like what was happening in California? Oh, I learned from a mission companion who was part of Proposition 8. She was from California. She told me about it and how she as a teenager would go door to door campaigning against gay marriage. That's the first time I heard about that. And then when we moved back to London, the United States legalized gay marriage. And I had been raised and internalized the doctrine that being gay was a sin and a choice. And that was something I had to eventually deconstruct as an active member. But that's how I was raised. I was raised it was a choice that it was a sin and that the church does not support those actions and that being gay is a threat to the eternal family and a threat to the family proclamation, which is what the church was to advertising at that time. So I remember on the day that gay marriage was legalized in states because it had already been legalized in Canada before that. But everything. As Canadians, we follow American news very closely. The church came out with either a statement or an article. I can't remember talking about how we need to protect and support the family. And I posted that on Facebook in support of the family, feeling like I was being led by the spirit to do this. And I did not get exactly backlash, but I had two people respond to it. I had my sister in law respond to it and send me an article in which it was a parent of a gay son who hopes to one day see a day where the church accepts gay people. And she sent me a message. I hope you can read this and maybe see things a little differently and that I hope for a day where the church can accept this. And I was not prepared for that. And I was like, mm. And then my friend Shannon saw me post that. And what happened to me and Shannon's friendship is that we were like this. We became instant best buds, instant, like almost sisters. But the older and older we got, and me staying Mormon, Mormon and her not being Mormon, we went like this. And Shannon described it as when we were younger, her world was still small. But as she got older and she moved away from home and she went to university, her world got bigger while my world still stayed small. And so it kind of was. And Shannon was grappling with how to maintain a friendship with me. And she often did categorize my friendship because, I mean, I don't believe blame her. I was Mormon and all of her friends are not. And how. And so my friend, I felt my friendship be categorized. And at the time, that was a source of sadness for me in our friendship. But at the same time, there was nothing that could be done because I Was Mormon. But she traveled all the way to London to talk to me about what I posted. And she told me in that moment that she does not believe that being gay is a sin. In fact, she knows it's not. And she knows that this is not a choice and that what I did was wrong.

John Dehlin [01:59:33] Wow.

Ben Jalaff [01:59:33] Really? This is heavy. Like, just things like that. The fact that she drove all the way, that's a two and a half hour drive to just tell Justine, what are you doing? Like, I mean, talking about how good of a friend she is.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:46] This was a line in the sand for her. She's like, okay, I gotta say something. I can't let this go. Because when it gets her values.

John Dehlin [01:59:52] But that's an act of love. Weirdly, if she didn't care about you, she wouldn't have bothered.

Justine Jalaff [01:59:56] No, just because she cared about me. She cared about my friendship deeply and she didn't want to lose me as a friend. But at the same time, she's like, how can I be friends with someone like that? And she did. And this hurt. And I couldn't understand it at the time, but she specifically told me, if one of my kids is gay, you're not invited to the wedding.

John Dehlin [02:00:13] Whoa.

Justine Jalaff [02:00:14] And I was like, what? Of course I would love your child.

Ben Jalaff [02:00:17] I remember Justine coming and asking me and telling me this. And I remember trying to explain it to Justine. Like, how. How can you think that you can go to the wedding after this? Like, I mean, you're not agreeing with the life that her child is choosing. That's. It comes back down to what I thought. Like, if one of my kids is gay, I can stay here. That's not me supporting them. So I can totally understand Shane and you know, feeling that way.

Confronting Difficult Truths About the Church

Justine Jalaff [02:00:41] And when actually Ben found out about this, Ben was like, yeah, you shouldn't have posted that. I was like. But I felt like I was supporting the church. And so what did I do? I deactivated my Facebook because I could not handle it. I could not handle the backlash. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting this just from two people. And. Yeah. And so that was the, I think, the beginning of me trying to learn for myself that I'm so confused right now. The church is telling me one thing, but I think I might be starting to believe something else, which is, I don't think gay is a choice. So then when I started listening to questions from a closet and they were active members who were gay and. And came out that they were gay, and a lot of people have a lot of Criticism for this podcast. A lot of ex Mormons, but they, they, as an active member of the church, helped me understand what it is truly. What it is truly to be gay and to be gay in the church. And they made me realize, this is not a choice. You are born this way. And they helped me understand that. And then from there, I came across. So obviously social media influenced me very heavily. I came across another social media account. She was an active member at the time, and she was talking about how, once again, progressive nuance, how she doesn't believe in absolute. So she doesn't believe in saying, I know. Like, how can we truly know?

John Dehlin [02:02:30] Do you remember who it was?

Justine Jalaff [02:02:31] I don't know her name.

John Dehlin [02:02:32] That's fine.

Justine Jalaff [02:02:34] But she was a garment wearing and talked vocally about the garments on her thing. And she was a single. A single, single adult member in you in Idaho, I think. And just the way she expressed herself resonated with me. And I was like, yeah, it's okay to say I don't know, or it's like. Or not saying like, because I was raised, I know the church is true. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. I would cry at the pulpit saying, I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. And then I was like, you know what? I'm seeing some things in the church that I'm not necessarily understanding and I'm not necessarily okay with. So maybe it's okay for me to just say, I believe or I hope this is true. And that helped me. When Ben came to me and told me that he didn't believe anymore, my first response was, it's okay. I don't believe in absolutes anymore. Yeah. But that didn't stop me from completely falling into a big mess of tears, telling him, I'm gonna lose my priesthood holder.

John Dehlin [02:03:47] Did you say it smiling, Laughing? No, I said it crying, like, and sad.

Ben Jalaff [02:03:52] And what had happened was I told Justine. I finally talked to her, and she let me take that step of taking a break. I didn't exactly tell her, I'm leaving. I need a break. I think a couple days later, she saw me taking my garments off. And when she saw that, I think it glued in her that it's real. So I went to the basement to do my own thing. And I remember Justine comes downstairs and she broke down in the basement. Like, what happened? She just. The million dollar question, what happened? Like, out of a scroll of a thousand things, which one do I tell you? Because it's not a singular thing. I remember telling Justina, I don't even know what to tell you, like, there's so many.

Justine Jalaff [02:04:32] Yeah, sorry. I forgot to say that I was also witnessing this very angry Ben. Like, why are you so angry at church? Why are you so miserable? What is happening to you?

John Dehlin [02:04:45] So this wasn't his normal person.

Justine Jalaff [02:04:47] No. We even had the bishop at the time say to. Because his wife is my friend, say, yeah. Like, he's like, why Is. Like, I haven't seen Ben happy in a really long time. And it's just like, yeah, what happened? And then I'm allowing myself to question. And I came up with a theory before Ben approached me with his faith crisis, because I had a friend come to me, and she was struggling in the church, and I told her, you know what? This is what I think is happening. I think that the church is an institution and that it has a lot of flaws and that I actually think that Jesus Christ is going to come back and tell us, you've been doing this wrong. That was me being apologetic, but also trying to, like, validate that there are reasons people leave and there are reasons that there's issues. But I think, like, we are in the true church, and we just sort of somehow got some things wrong, and Christ is going to come and tell us, oh, this is how it's actually supposed to be.

Ben Jalaff [02:05:55] Yeah. I told Justine, and in the basement, I told her, hey, look, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to point out one thing, but I told Justine, you could do this on your own. And that's when Justine decided, okay, I'm gonna do it. I don't want you to tell me anything. I'm gonna do it my own way. The next day, she sent me a text message. I'm reading the CES letter. And my heart stops when I hear that. Because now I know.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:27] Whoa.

Ben Jalaff [02:06:27] Okay, this is actually happening now. But what I found out that night is that Justine is reading the CES letter, but she had never read the book of Abraham.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:38] You didn't know that at the time, though.

Ben Jalaff [02:06:39] You didn't know that at the time. But I just. She comes home, and she said that it didn't resonate with her, which I found odd.

Justine Jalaff [02:06:46] Like, what Poor Ben is trying so hard to, like, he would come up to me and he would point out paragraphs. Oh, by the way, for some reason, I knew about the gospel topic essays. I knew they existed. I think since they came out. I don't know how, but that. I didn't feel like that was a secret. So I had gone on the gospel library app on my own, searched church history in the Gospel. By the way, those of you who don't think that these exist, just go on the Gospel app, go under church history and they're right there. And I would. I like scrolled through them and like, I think because they're written so apologetic and I was still so faithful that I was like, oh, yeah, church history is messy. We got issues.

John Dehlin [02:07:34] But no, they're written in a way so that you won't think there's a problem.

Justine Jalaff [02:07:37] Yeah, exactly.

Ben Jalaff [02:07:39] Yeah, I don't think that works for me.

Justine Jalaff [02:07:41] He thought there was a big problem after reading them. And I was like, no, there's no problem.

Ben Jalaff [02:07:45] Not amount of apologetic on those words. I will find any kindness on that. It doesn't matter how nicely you put it to me that Joseph Smith had 40 plus wives because God told him to. Because now you're blaming God for this. Now which one do I pick? Do I blame Joseph Smith or God then? Either or. You have a problem.

John Dehlin [02:08:04] Yeah, it's a problem.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:05] You have a problem. Okay, I'm gonna give Joseph Smith a pass. That means God is the problem here and that's the God we're supposed to follow. The angel with the flaming sword from Pheny Alger. For the ones who don't know that this is Joseph Smith forcing not Phani Algeria. This is Joseph Smith forcing a girl to marry him under a threat of

Justine Jalaff [02:08:26] death or destruction or eternal destruction.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:29] I like, no matter apologetic, the way you write it is going to convince me that it's not courting someone.

Justine Jalaff [02:08:36] Yeah. So Ben would come up to me and he was like, did you know that it says in the gospel topic essays that Joseph Smith said he saw an angel with a flaming sword trying to convince this girl to marry him? And I'd be like, I grew up with the narrative that Joseph did not want to do polygamy and that God basically made him do it. So I was like, that's nothing new.

Ben Jalaff [02:08:59] I tried so hard, but Ben was

Justine Jalaff [02:09:02] like, but where is the agency here? Where is this girl's agency? And actually, where is Joseph Smith's agency? If we're a church of agency and God has given us our agency, where is their agency? And I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know. Just stop bothering me with this stuff.

Ben Jalaff [02:09:19] I'm trying really hard to try to get. Justine, open your eyes a little bit. This is not good. So I tried one last dish at 10 and this is not good on my part, what I did here. I wish I would have Told Justine, I gather some friends that were still active and brought them into my home because I wanted to ask questions. I want to give them a chance. Can you please answer these questions for me? Because I'm giving you one last attempt convince me to stay. And they're not giving me very good answers. The one thing I did ask that group of friends, I said to them, because London has a lot of homeless problem, a lot of homeless people in London. I remember telling my friend, what if I take my 10% tithing and I don't give it to the church, but I give it to the London shelter? Because that's what Jesus taught us, Right? So I'm explaining this to him, and he said, no, because if you do that, you'll lose your temple recommendation. And I'm trying to tell him, I highly doubt Jesus cares. And then Justine, out of nowhere, snaps and said, well, Ben dad, you lose your temple recommend. That's it. When she snapped at me, I knew,

Justine Jalaff [02:10:25] oh, you've pushed this too far.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:27] I pushed it too far. And now I know Justine is not ready for this. And I stepped away and my friends left, and I felt like, oh, man, this is no good.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:37] Yeah. But he got really upset that I did that.

Ben Jalaff [02:10:39] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:10:40] And I was just like, I just. What is happening? Why are you so upset? I understand there's issues, but is it that bad that you're acting like this?

Ben Jalaff [02:10:51] Because Justine thinks it's happening very quickly, but she doesn't know. I've been doing this since the early stages of 2023. I'm being silent for so long, and I'm finally releasing. And to make things worse, this is it right here. The resolution. I have always had a friend that grew up around the well and guys, that was very, very powerful, giving testimonies. Powerful guy. But I'm having. I'm suspecting he's gone from the church, and I decided to give him a call just because I'm suspecting. Story short, he tells me, yeah, true claims, all that. But I came across this book by Stephen Hassan. And what is that? It talks about cult behavior and all that.

John Dehlin [02:11:34] The book is Combating Cult Mind Control by Stephen Hasson. We've had him on the podcast.

Ben Jalaff [02:11:39] Yeah. So he tells me to don't worry about reading the book because it's a lot, and you're going through a lot right now. But I'm going to recommend two videos that you could watch. One is about talking about that book, but there's somebody on YouTube illustrating stages of what's going on. And there's another video of top 10 things to see if you're in a cult. And I watched both videos, and at that point, it wasn't about me worrying about my marriage. It's about me and my children. Now, wait a second. I was stepping out, but now I'm concerned about my kids now because I watched that top 10 things. And she said, if you have one step, you're not in a cult. If you're in two, no. If you're in four, maybe. And when you're in fight. We were at the eight step, and I'm like, whoa, this is bad. At that point, I told Justine, like, you need to watch this with me.

Justine Jalaff [02:12:36] Yeah. And I didn't want to, but when he told me who sent it to him, this was someone we both grew up with.

Ben Jalaff [02:12:42] We were sent to him.

Justine Jalaff [02:12:43] What? This person left as well. That was a big shock. And I said, because I knew this person so well, okay, I'll watch it. And I. I have a hard time. Okay. So. Because if my family or active members ever watch this, they'll take great offense for me using the C word. But this is literally what broke my brain. So Ben showed me this YouTube video of this man. He illustrates the bite model and how Steven Hazan has explained it, and he simply explains it. And I watched that YouTube video, and literally something in my brain just broke. And so how can I not use the C word when that is what broke my brain and broke my shelf? Listening to that and being like, oh, my God, am I in a cult? And I do want to say, and I think this is very profound, some people will disagree with me, but I have every right to say that through my experiences that I think I was in a cult. But if you're an active member of the church and you don't think you're in a cult, then maybe you're not in a cult. I think it's for me on my experiences and how I. How I internalized the gospel and how. Sorry. And how it informed my choices and led my life and the harm that I feel like it did to me. And I also think serving a mission was a big part of that, too. It broke my brain, and that is what led me to start looking at the truth claims.

John Dehlin [02:14:43] Yeah. You can. You know, you can feel like you were raised in a cult without you having to tell other Mormons.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:50] Yes. That you're in a cult. I will never tell my family that they are in a cult.

John Dehlin [02:14:54] That was your experience.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:55] That was my experience.

John Dehlin [02:14:56] Yeah. Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:14:58] And I had a sibling When I left the church, I didn't even bring it up, but she's like, we're not a cult. And I have to say, like, okay, that's fine. You're not in a cult. But I was in a cult. How can I. I'm sorry. How can I not say that? That's what broke my brain. That's what caused me to finally understand what's been happening my entire life.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] And is there any way you could summarize that? I mean, the bite model is a way that people. The Stephen Hassan sort of, you know, behavioral control, information control, thought control, emotional manipulation. Do you even want to go there?

Justine Jalaff [02:15:37] I don't. I haven't even watched it since that first time. But what really broke me, I think, was the control aspect of how cults can even control what you wear. And at that point, I was feeling like the garments were controlling me, and I was. I was feeling like that my garments were taking away. Took away my autonomy to decide how I wanted to dress and how I wanted to appear. And I was having a hard time with that at that point. So for me, it's like, you're controlling what I wear.

John Dehlin [02:16:12] But that's just one people.

Justine Jalaff [02:16:14] That was just one.

John Dehlin [02:16:15] You're not listing everything.

Justine Jalaff [02:16:16] No, that was just, like, what went through my brain initially. And then another thing was I always resented the fact that I could never socially drink because it made me not have friendships, because I just couldn't sit in the nuance of hanging out with people who were drinking and still have those friendships. It was all or nothing for me because I had a lot of fear. And I always. I remember telling my friend who walked away from the church and they still haven't chosen to drink. And I remember telling her, as an Acton member, oh, I would drink. Drink. I would drink socially, for sure. But, I mean, I'm a member, so. And so I felt like that was controlling me. Coffee. Like you're controlling what I eat, what I drink.

John Dehlin [02:17:00] Like underwear.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:03] Yeah, like. And there's so much more to it.

John Dehlin [02:17:06] But I was like, purity culture was a big thing.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:09] Yeah. The purity culture that I. I couldn't decide for myself if I wanted to be sexually active or not. I was just. No, because you told me no. And. Yeah, I don't even remember. So many things just went through my brain, and I was like, I don't know what just happened. I don't know what just happened.

John Dehlin [02:17:30] You mentioned also self confidence being so low.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:35] Yeah. Oh, I think it was

John Dehlin [02:17:39] like life was stolen from you.

Justine Jalaff [02:17:42] Yeah, I just. I'm not sure I felt that then I hadn't deconstructed that yet. But I think because I had, I have to say this, people who leave the church don't just wake up one day and decide to leave. Something was not working for them for a very long time. And I think I realized in that moment why I had been trying so hard to follow the Mormon formula and why it wasn't working for me because I was never supposed to do it in the first place. I was never supposed to have to be on that one path, being told everything I needed to do to get back to God in the first place. And you manipulated me to make me think that I did. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:18:39] And then you also mentioned a lack of informed consent, which speaks to the information control part.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:45] Would you feel like you were given all the information?

Justine Jalaff [02:18:48] No. Because at that point I had learned about the Rock in the hat and that was not my narrative growing up.

John Dehlin [02:18:54] Polygamy.

Justine Jalaff [02:18:55] And for some reason I had already learned. Polygamy, I'm sad to say, was not a shelf breaker for me because for some reason I had a seminary teacher who focused a lot on that when we did Doctrine and Covenants. And I. People in the church have told me, I've read on the ex Mormon Reddit that people are like, I never learned that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I'm like, I totally learned that Joseph Smith was a polygamist.

John Dehlin [02:19:20] You probably didn't know 14 year old girls. You probably didn't know mother, daughter pairs, sister pairs.

Justine Jalaff [02:19:25] I knew that he married girls that lived with him.

John Dehlin [02:19:28] But you didn't know he lied to Emma, that he married 22 women before he ever told Emma.

Justine Jalaff [02:19:32] I know she didn't like it.

Ben Jalaff [02:19:33] Yeah, no, I remember. I mean, when polygamy to me, again, you can paint it as beautifully as you can, is still wrong, you know, And I know that there's Mormons and ex Mormons that are okay with that. No, you can tell me that. And the one thing that the church teaches, that Joseph Smith didn't want to do it. Yeah, right. You're meaning to tell me that if God appears to a man and says, you're allowed to have sex with multiple women, you're going to say no. You'll be like, oh, God commanded me, why not be forward and tell Emma right away, why are you hiding it? You know, and what he did, also getting his brother Hyrum to give the revelation to her, you couldn't even do it yourself. Like, to me, I look at it as like, it's. It's wrong already. This is bad.

Justine Jalaff [02:20:24] But I grew up being told that I have a loving, merciful God, but also being told at the same time that I have a God that forces people who don't want to do polygamy to do polygamy, and that Joseph Smith would have rather have died than do polygamy, but God made him, and it's not true.

John Dehlin [02:20:43] Because when you read the letters he wrote some of his polygamous wives, it's come to me. I'm lonely and I need you beside me. He was loving it.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:52] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:20:52] Which I didn't learn until later. And then the next step for me. So after that, for me. So you're raised in the church to believe so much in the Book of Mormon, so much in the Book of Mormon, and it's connected to all your spiritual experiences and you're emotionally connected to it. And it's the one true book on the earth. It's the most correct book on the earth. On the earth. It's the cornerstone of our religion. If it falls, everything falls. And I remember talking to my friend who had left the church, and I remember saying, well, Joseph Smith was such a bad guy. How could he have written such a book as. As amazing as the Book of Mormon? And this smile, she said, maybe you should check out this podcast, LDS Discussions,

John Dehlin [02:21:43] which is actually a Mormon Stories product that we marketed with the name LDS Discussion. Just for those of you who don't know, you can go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts or there's a YouTube playlist under the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel called LDS Discussions. It's like 50, 55 episodes where we tackle Mormon church truth claims chronologically, trying to be as evidence based and as neutral as we can be. But we obviously sometimes get upset anyway.

Justine Jalaff [02:22:14] Yeah, so it wasn't the CES letter that resonated with me. I didn't even finish it. I don't even think I got past page three. I don't understand these questions, but I started listening. I started listening to Alia's discussions and I listened to the first episode about treasure digging. And I like history. I'm a history minor. Yeah, I enjoy history. I know what, like how to do research and no credible sources. Because I did my minor and even my major in English. Like, I knew how to, like, no credible sources and do your proper research. And so I'm listening to this podcast and I'm like, first of all, half the time they're using sources from church, and the other time they're Pointing to historical documents that I can look up and find myself. But it was learning that Joseph Smith. Okay, so I knew that Joseph Smith was a treasure digger, but this is the narrative that I grew up with. I thought everyone back then is searching for gold, and he just needed to make some money. And some rich guy was looking for gold. And Joseph Smith was just a grunt worker digging in the ground, helping this guy find his goal.

John Dehlin [02:23:30] He was literally shovel digging.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:32] Yeah. And the movie that I shared on my mission of the restoration shows him carrying a shovel.

John Dehlin [02:23:39] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:40] Okay. That's the narrative I grew up with.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:43] That's not how it went down.

Justine Jalaff [02:23:44] And meantime, him and Emma are having their beautiful romance. Okay. No. You find out that what actually happened is that treasure digging was illegal fraudulent behavior that people got arrested for and charged for, and that Joseph Smith wasn't the one digging the holes. He was actually the one using a rock and a hat to tell people that there was treasure in the ground and to get all these other people to dig for days, I might add, sometimes digging huge holes into the. The side of the hillsides, like, this was not small jobs. Okay. And to find out that he did that 40 times and he got money

John Dehlin [02:24:32] for it, for claiming to have special powers to find hidden buried treasure.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:38] And out of those 40 digs, they never found anything. And it was illegal, and he got arrested.

Ben Jalaff [02:24:46] Oh, man.

John Dehlin [02:24:47] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:48] Like, it was illegal.

John Dehlin [02:24:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:24:50] And then everything comes unraveling for you because then you're like, oh, that's why Emma's dad didn't want Emma to marry Joseph Smith. Not because he was some prick, snotty rich guy, which I thought was. Yeah, well, he's just being a rich, snooty guy who just didn't want Emma to marry someone beneath her. But no, he actually feared for his daughter because she was getting involved with someone who was fraudulent.

John Dehlin [02:25:14] Yeah. That is right. That is what Isaac Hale thought.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:17] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:18] And he was so demonized.

John Dehlin [02:25:20] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:20] So, so many people who were demonized in church history, like Lucy Harris, are actually heroes.

John Dehlin [02:25:27] Smart, smart, smart.

Justine Jalaff [02:25:29] Yeah. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Martin Harris is dumb, dumb, dumb. Lucy Harris is smart. She was so smart. And she was a woman of the time. This is like me wanting, like, history woman had no say in their finances. They did not own property. Everything went through the man. Everything went through the husband. And here's her stupid husband getting involved in a scam, and she knows it. And she's doing everything in her power to protect her home and her money and whatever power she might hold so that her husband doesn't spend it all on this man. And she was demonized for it. My whole life, I saw her as the bad guy when she was just a woman trying to protect herself. Anyway, so listening to LDS discussions, I listened to that first episode, and that's when I told Ben, I'm not going back to church.

John Dehlin [02:26:22] That was it. You just did what? Did you stop or.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:24] No, I kept going, but that was like. That's all I needed to hear. You just gave me evidence that he was a fraud.

John Dehlin [02:26:32] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:32] And then I told myself, okay, oh, sorry. I told. Then we're taking a break. We're taking a break. And I said, I need to get through this until I understand what happened with the Book of Mormon, because how the hell, if this is not the Book of God, how could he have written this?

John Dehlin [02:26:51] The book's too amazing.

Justine Jalaff [02:26:52] The book's too amazing, and it means too much to me. And it was such an important part of my life, and I've been taught my whole life that it's the most correct book on earth. So if he didn't translate it by the power of God, then what happened?

John Dehlin [02:27:09] And what'd you find out?

Justine Jalaff [02:27:12] There's so much. Right? Honestly, just listen to LDS discussions because.

John Dehlin [02:27:19] But the discussions of the Book of Mormon on LDS discussions helped you make more sense of what you mean.

Justine Jalaff [02:27:25] Mike constantly talked about the puzzle, right? How this is not like he's grabbing work from other people who did the work before him, but somehow he had that skill set and critical thinking to be able to put it all together in this perspective, that he took all these separate pieces and put it together in this puzzle in which you could see the big, clearer picture. And that's why the CS letter didn't work for me. It didn't help me do that. I didn't understand what all these. All these truth claim puzzle pieces were in all the questions that were being asked in the CS letter. But with LDS discussions slowly over every podcast, he was taking piece by piece by piece and putting it together until finally I was like, okay, I get it now. And for me, what became my mantra in leaving the church was knowledge is power. And I was like, knowledge. I needed the knowledge. I needed to know the truth claims to give me the power to know that I don't have to stay here. I can leave. Because I had to literally tell myself, if you don't want to be there, Justine, you don't have to be there. You can go. And I had to tell myself that over and over and over again because I would literally cry in bed to Ben, telling him, I think I'm going to be a second class citizen in heaven. I think I'm damning my children. What are we going to do? How are we going to raise our children? The only toolbox I have in parenting is Mormonism. How am I going to raise my children outside of Mormonism? How am I going to handle my family? And I would just cry and cry and cry and cry and cry because the knowledge is power. But then when the grief sets in, that something you've been taught your whole life is true and beautiful and trustworthy, and you've, you've orchestrated your entire life around it to find out that it is a lie hurts so bad. And then you start your deconstruction and you go down the rabbit hole. And that is not an easy process. And at the same time, you have to make phone calls and explain to your family why you're not going back to church. And that process put me in bed for days, just crying. And the grief that I knew that I would never be connected to my family in the same way. Because Mormonism is such a cultural family tradition. It's a culture, it's a spiritual connection, and it's an identity in your family. And when you leave an orthodox Mormon family, you are essentially disconnecting yourself from all of that, which is like your entire family's identity, culture, and spirituality. And I still, to this day, I don't really know how to. I don't know what to do with that.

Deciding to Leave the Church

John Dehlin [02:30:26] Your parents and siblings, as far as you know, for the most part, remain faithful, active Mormons.

Justine Jalaff [02:30:32] Yeah. Except for one sibling.

John Dehlin [02:30:34] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [02:30:35] He left before me, and that's him and his wife.

John Dehlin [02:30:39] Left you to feel disconnected from your family of origin?

Justine Jalaff [02:30:42] It's just because I grew up in a very loving home and Mormonism was a gift. Like, I was raised in a way that Mormonism felt like a gift. And how my parents tried to connect with us in Mormonism was in such a loving way. And my parents truly believed that what they were giving us was a gift. And I'm essentially telling my mom, I'm taking that gift and I don't want it anymore. And that really, I think, hurts her, hurts my siblings who still believe. And it hurts me because I'm basically telling you everything that you did for me in this religion, I don't believe it anymore. And I don't want it for my own children and I don't want it for me. So essentially I'm taking this beautiful gift you've given me and I'm checking it and, like, how I've sat with that. It's just the only word I can say is grief. Just a lot of grief. Because I love my family a lot, and I just want them to know that. And I'm just so sorry if I've offended you with this podcast, but it's my story, and I love you. I love you. Even though you're still in the church, I love you. You don't have to leave, but I had to leave. And I hope you can understand that. I'm not asking any active member of the church to leave because I understand how complex that is, and you might feel, and you probably feel it brings you peace and happiness, and I don't want to take that away from you, but I just need the validation for you to understand that it wasn't working for us. It wasn't working for me and Ben, and for our happiness, we had to go. We had to leave. And I hope that you canoa I still love you. And I have to say that my family has shown me unconditional love in this process. It's been a process for them, and they've had their own grief in this, but they have chosen to love me despite me leaving the church. And my mom told me after a really hard conversation, she said, my love for you is not based on any religious belief. She said, I love you because you're my daughter, and my love for you is unconditional. And I know that. That's why it was so hard for me to leave the church, because this is the family that raised me. And I never questioned because I was in a bubble of love.

John Dehlin [02:33:43] That makes it harder.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:33:45] Yeah, it makes it harder.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:46] And it makes it harder for them to understand because they see so much joy and purpose and peace from it.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:57] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:33:58] And I understand that because I felt that at one time, too. But I don't feel it anymore. And I'm allowed to change.

John Dehlin [02:34:07] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:08] And I'm allowed to be able to navigate my marriage and how I think is the healthiest way possible. And if that means leaving the church so that I can still continue to be in a loving marriage where me and my husband feel like we're in a healthy relationship, then I'm going to do that. Can I just say one more thing?

John Dehlin [02:34:30] I was about to say amen. Oh, no, please.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:36] Because I want to speak to women in the church. Is that okay?

John Dehlin [02:34:39] Yeah. That's awesome.

Justine Jalaff [02:34:42] When Ben told me that he was walking away from the church, and I cried to him, telling him, am I Losing my priesthood holder. I knew at that moment that I was losing my privilege in the church. I knew in that moment that if I lose my priesthood holder, I lose all privilege. My privilege is through my priesthood holder. Because as a woman in the church, I do not have the priesthood. And if Ben were to leave the church and I were to stay in the church active and faithful, this is what our reality would look like. My son, who was 7, would get baptized by some random priesthood holder, or maybe my dad and his father and my husband would be sitting there beside me in shame. That's one scenario. Another scenario is I've always had access to the priesthood. My dad was always a worthy priesthood holder, so I always had access to blessings. And he always access to anything I needed through the priesthood. Same with Ben. Ben was always a priesthood worthy priesthood holder. I always had access to blessings. If I lose my priesthood holder, I have to go ask my minister, my home teacher, some random dude from the ward. When I'm crying and I'm distraught or I'm sick or my child is sick, I have to go call that random guy and get him to come into my home and bless me and bless my children. And then I'll be that lady sitting in the ward where everyone's going to talk about her and ward council and say, what can we do to support this woman with the priesthood because her husband has left the covenant path. And I knew in that moment, I was like, that is not going to be my reality in the church. And that was another thing that I was like, it is time to see what the hell Ben has been looking at, because I need to know what's going on.

John Dehlin [02:36:43] Yeah. Who wants to be that woman in the church? Right.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:47] And there are many women who are.

John Dehlin [02:36:49] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:50] And they're also women.

John Dehlin [02:36:52] Also, women are leaving the church at a faster rate than men these days.

Justine Jalaff [02:36:55] Yeah. But I mean, I have someone who in my ward whose husband did leave the church and she chose to remain faithful. And I was in the stake at the time, and she was a topic in ward council, and her husband was pitied. She was pitied. And how can we help her? And that would have been me. Yeah, no, thank you.

John Dehlin [02:37:14] No, thanks.

Justine Jalaff [02:37:16] Nope. If I'm not gonna have that privilege, I don't want to be here. And then that made me realize, wait a second, why don't I have that privilege? And then it just keeps going.

John Dehlin [02:37:28] Yeah. Well, super powerful. Thank you so much, Justine. That was powerful. We could keep going, and we're gonna. Ben, what was it like to have Justine, come around to the point of view you were having. Did you expect it and what was it like to witness it?

Ben Jalaff [02:37:48] I'm gonna answer that very quickly with this. She's on my right right now.

John Dehlin [02:37:54] She's what?

Ben Jalaff [02:37:54] She's to my right?

John Dehlin [02:37:56] Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:37:57] This was the best case scenario when I started listening to you. I will think that that would mean by that will be my best case scenario. What would I do if I go to Mormon stories and if I have Justine beside me? I'm not going to go into detail because I don't want to take too long, but the answer is she's right here with me. To summarize what I was feeling. It will take too long, but my happy ending is right now. I love her. I want to say this very quickly to Justine's family and to all my friends listening right now and to anybody that will lend their ears to me. I left the church because I wanted to be a better human being. The church did not allow me to do that fully. I tried very hard to fit in a society that did not give me the tools I needed to be that human being. Did I influence Justine? Maybe I did to some degree. But Justine has her own brain. And when you're lying and when you're hiding information, you can't hide that from somebody that with the intelligence that Justine has to put it together on her own. I didn't tell Justine a single thing. All I told Justine was the Church is not true. She told me not to say anything to her, and she did her own studies, and she came to that conclusion on her own. I love Justine's family. I do. I want them to look at me and to know that I love her to the point where I will protect her with my life, same with my children. And I hope that they see this interview and realize that. All I want is to people to look at me and realize all I wanted was just to be a better person. And I couldn't attend that in the church. I couldn't attain that. I love my friends. That gave me an opportunity to tell them how I felt and accepted me. To my well and brothers, thank you for your friendship. And I will directly tell you, to all my well and friends, let go of the band that you once knew and embrace this one that always existed, because this one is the real one, not the one you thought you knew. The real one is this one. My friends always saw me as a silly, fun guy that might not be serious. Let me tell you something. I'm in Mormon stories in front of John de Lin and Margi Delin telling my Mormon story all the way from Canada. That should tell you how serious I am when I get to serious things. Okay. Otherwise, I would have never apply and be here. Get to know me now because the person that I am now is different than the person you thought you knew.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:00] But he's pretty great, and I'm pretty great.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:02] Yeah. And I.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:10] He's the. He's the husband I always wanted.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:14] My marriage got better since I left the church. I couldn't meet the standard that she was seeking because I couldn't give it to her. I stepped away from the church, and Justine and I had discussions where our marriage has gotten so much better.

John Dehlin [02:41:30] You mentioned coffee. You have coffee time or something.

Ben Jalaff [02:41:34] Coffee chats.

Justine Jalaff [02:41:35] So in our deconstruction and part of our reconstruction is that we. Because, like, when you deconstruct, the church is so all consuming. It takes over every aspect of your life, and you're, like, kind of obsessed. And it was kind of starting to be a lot. So we decided, let's tunnel this more into our coffee chats. So we started drinking. Well, first, we had already started drinking coffee, and we both really like coffee. And so what? And one thing we really like about coffee is, like, it slows you down, and it's like a communal thing. You can get a cup of coffee and you can go and you can talk for, like, hours. But we did it in our own home. So we had our coffee pot, and we'd make our own coffee. And then we would have what was called a coffee chat, where we would sit drinking our coffee and just go at it with our deconstruction, which led us to our reconstruction, which has made us realize, oh, this happened in our marriage. This harmed us in our marriage. This is what we want in our marriage. This is what I see is happening now. And this is what I want now. And me finally being able to open up to Ben and tell him, like, I have to back up a little bit. When I had my faith crisis, I called my friend Shannon and I told her I was talking about Ben needing to be a provider. And she told me, my husband's not a provider for me. I provide for myself financially, but my husband provides for me emotionally. And he provides for me with his compassion. And, like, he provides for her on emotional level that she needs. And I was like, wait a second. So you're telling me that provide doesn't necessarily mean bring in money, but it means that Ben provides for me socially because I'm an introvert and Ben's an extrovert and I have basically a good social life because of Ben. Also, he provides for me emotionally. He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good about myself. We love each other's companionship. When we go on dates, we realize, oh yeah, this is why we got married, because we love being around each other. He provides for me with companionship. And then that helped us break down these gender roles and for us to learn, hey, our marriage is so much healthier if we just work as a team and use our strengths together to bring in the money. Doesn't have to be just you, doesn't have to just be me. But together we can make this work. And the pressure and the stress that that lifted from our relationship was immense. And we are just like, we still have a lot of things we need to figure out for our future and I still have a lot of stuff I need to figure out for my career. But just taking that pressure off of Ben and looking at more as like us being a team and working together and being companions and getting rid of those gender identified roles has changed our marriage and changed our lives.

John Dehlin [02:44:43] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:44:45] And all that came out in our coffee chats.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:44:50] I love it. Let me ask Ben, can you tell the story of telling your parents that you no longer believed? Do you mind telling that story?

Telling Family and Making It Official

Ben Jalaff [02:45:03] We decided to leave the church in December of 2023 because you were pretty

John Dehlin [02:45:07] estranged from your parents.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:08] Yeah. My relationship with my parents was done at the end of the episode. I would like to say something directly to them. I feel like they deserve to hear that. But when I decided to walk away, Justine and I talked about it and said, let's just keep this secret and just tell a few people. And the first people that came to my mind were my own parents. I'm sorry. I went to my parents house and I told them that me and Justine

John Dehlin [02:45:47] were walking away from the Church of Mormonism.

Ben Jalaff [02:45:50] From Mormonism. My mom, who was the skeptical one, through how the beginning, the very beginning, just broke down in happiness. They had lost me and they got their only son back. They lost four children and the only one surviving one just did not fulfill that for the longest time. So their reaction told me that what I have done was a hundred percent the right thing.

John Dehlin [02:46:33] Did you say your mom fell to the ground?

Ben Jalaff [02:46:34] Yeah, she hugged me. She hugged me and told me that my son is back. My son is back. He will look at my dad and say, poopy, we got him back. We got our son back. I am in Canada because of them. I'm Married to her because of their sacrifice of them not having fear to pack their bags and go to another country and learn life again. I met my well and friends because my parents. I became a Mormon because of them, because they wanted me. Me to be protected. They didn't deserve what I did to them. I treated them like a Mormonism, and they didn't deserve that. I have three kids that love my parents and love them more because I'm allowing them to love their culture that they don't know about. To see my children love my parents the way they love them now. My cousins from Colombia, who has stepped up, my cousin Otto, Sara. They came from the Woodwards. They were always near me. And ever since I stepped away from Mormonism, they just came like a resurgent fire and helped me feel like I was never alone. I love them, and I wish that I never did that to them. I really wish that it could be different. But I cannot change the past. I can just move forward. But I told my parents, and they handle it very happily, you know, and even when I. When I. When Justine told her friend Shannon, that was also a great validation to me because I felt like I was just looking for validations that what I'd done was the right thing to do. That really helped.

Margi Dehlin [02:48:45] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:48:45] Because Shannon felt like she also got her friend back.

Ben Jalaff [02:48:48] Sorry I broke down that way.

Justine Jalaff [02:48:50] And Ben felt like he had been that person that helped bring me back to this. This friendship I always valued but could never have the way I wanted it to be because of being a Mormon. And so he got a lot of validation when Shannon hugged him and thanked him and said, thank you for bringing back my friend. And I have felt like since leaving the church and deconstructing that I was lost. And I'm now starting to find myself. My identity, my confidence. I feel like that was taken from me in motherhood. I lost it. And now I'm starting to get it back, and I'm starting to get my confidence back, and I'm starting to find out who just truly is. And I do thank Ben, because as much as people might think that he's the reason I. I left the church, I thank him that he was able to help me learn how to critically think for myself. And he did that for me. He gave me that gift.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:05] Hey.

Justine Jalaff [02:50:08] So I think. I just want to say that I think if there's anything to take away from this, if you're an active member of the church, please understand that people who choose to walk away do it with reason. And please, even if you don't understand why and you can't bring yourself to ask the question why. Please reserve judgment and please show empathy and friendship. Don't let those relationships and friendships go. Hold on tight to them, because those people are still the genuine, loving people, you know? Did you see that? Too much. Yeah.

Ben Jalaff [02:50:54] I. I want to say this to any member out there watching this. Just because you're okay with the information that is given to you doesn't mean that we all need to be okay with it. As much as we walked away, we support if you stay. All we're asking is please just have empathy for us and with the ex Mormon community as well, have empathy for the people that stay as well. I heard this from a friend. People that choose religion are generally trying to be good people. And if I don't see it that way with Justine's family, I would never move on from this. They are good people trying to be good people, and that's generally something that is going to help me heal. But please, can we just be kind to each other and just not let. Let something, a view destroy friendship? Friendship is bigger than religion. Friendship is bigger than a political view. Friendship is a person that if you cry, they'll be there to hug you. Family is a person that if someone dies, they'll be there for you. If something drastically happens in your life, we, your family and friends will be there. And that's what's most important. I made some tough decisions. I've let go of some people in my life that didn't give me the love I was seeking, and that was tough. But, you know, it is the price you pay when just realizing that you need to make some decision in your life, and that's fine, too.

Justine Jalaff [02:52:32] It's okay to have boundaries in or out of the church as well.

John Dehlin [02:52:38] Super powerful. Wow. I'm just stunned. And this is so beautiful and powerful. We're almost at three hours, and there were still a lot of stuff you had listed around reconstruction. But, you know, parenting, new ethics and morality, new gender roles, you know, grief and happiness. What are the points you want to make, sure you want to make about reconstruction? If there's.

Justine Jalaff [02:53:12] There's one point I want to talk about is parenting.

John Dehlin [02:53:15] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [02:53:16] I think when you leave the church, you're so full of fear as to how I'm going to raise my children outside of this. For me, I was so full of fear. But the greatest advice that I was ever. I ever heard about parenting is that you don't need to hear advice from anyone because, you know, as a Parent. You have an instinct as a parent. You know what is best for your child more than anybody else, more than a religious institution, more than society and their expectations, more than anything. You know your child and you know what's best for them, and you will not fail them. And they will feel your unconditional love because your love will not have conditions. And that is what your children need from you. They need love without conditions. And when I fall back into that trap of, how do I do this? How do I do this? I never drink alcohol. What if my kids start drinking alcohol? I love my children. They know I love them. They know I'm a safe place. They know I'm not judging them, and I'm allowing them to be their true, authentic selves. And I feel like leaving the church, I gave my children their autonomy, and my children are damn smart and so are yours. And they'll be able to navigate this life as long as they have your support and your love unconditionally.

John Dehlin [02:54:45] Yeah. It's a parenting. I mean, it's going to be hard no matter what.

Justine Jalaff [02:54:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:49] Kids are going to be who they're going to be.

Justine Jalaff [02:54:50] It wasn't easy in the church. It was super hard in the church.

John Dehlin [02:54:53] But it's. We make it more complicated. And that was my biggest fear. I stayed in the church 13 years after I stopped believing, because in my mind, I couldn't raise healthy, moral kids outside of the church. It was a prison of my own making. Or at least I was conditioned. Thank you. That was beautiful. Other things y' all want to.

Reconstruction, Gratitude, and Looking Forward

Ben Jalaff [02:55:12] Yeah. For me, for my reconstruction. All I'm going to say is one thing. I told Justine this before I came here. I told Justine, as much as I love Mormon stories. Nemo, the Mormon, Alyssa Grenfell, rfm, Mike, whatever you are. And to the thousands of people that sat on this chair. What's the name of that? Nick Jones. Nick Jones. Thank you. Because listening to him gave me the courage to apply. But I told Justine, after today, I'm going home and removing my ruckers, and I'm done for good. My resolution to all of it is I want to be dissociated from this forever. I want to heal, and I want to allow my family to heal as well from it. This has been the toughest two years of my life. And coming here was planting the flag to the end of my journey. And just to finish it off with this. With this, what we're doing right now, to my. To my parents. Do you mind if I say it in Spanish to them?

John Dehlin [02:56:34] Love it.

Ben Jalaff [02:57:52] Thank you so much for taking me back to the. The friendships I thought I lost. Thank you for taking me back. And thank you to my parents for raising me well. And to my baseball friends that met with me just recently to tell me that they love me, to show me that love again. Because I've been able to reconnect with people that I had in my life before, and they are all with open arms. We love you. And for all my well and friends, thank you for being you and for welcoming into your country and to opening the doors of your land to me, to adjust to you and your love to every single one of you. I thank you. I don't resent anything. You gave me the best of Mormonism. I will always treasure that. And I want to say thanks to my wife for choosing me and for giving me the opportunity to show her that I really love her beyond this religion. And that's that. I'm done with all of that. I'm done.

John Dehlin [02:59:07] Powerful. Thank you, Justine.

Justine Jalaff [02:59:10] I love you too. And I love all the friends that have allowed me to change. I have friends who are still active in the church. We have this beautiful friendship group, us moms who had each other in church. We've become a mix of nuance active ex Mormons. And we've stayed friends because we see each other as friends, not in a religion, but as the mom friends that we need. And we love each other. And thank you so much for your love for still inviting me. Even though you see me change and even though I came online and said a few things that you might not have liked or agreed with, you still chose to keep me in your life. Thank you. And thank you for my family. I know this has been really hard for you. It's been really hard for me. But I love you and that's why it's been so hard. And I want to say thank you to Margi and John de Lynn. You were those voices of hope. When I was crying so hard, I didn't know how to move forward with this, but I just kept listening and listening and listening and Mike and LDS discussions. I know that wasn't easy for you to do, but thank you. You have helped so many people, including myself. And thank you, Mormonism, for making me feel safe and secure and loved in my childhood. I don't need you anymore, but thank you for that.

Ben Jalaff [03:00:48] Awesome.

John Dehlin [03:00:52] Beautiful. So beautiful. All right, I have one question. You guys ready?

Justine Jalaff [03:00:58] Sure.

John Dehlin [03:00:58] Ready for one final question?

Margi Dehlin [03:01:00] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:01:01] Have you all come to accept Canada's rightful place as the 51st state I

Justine Jalaff [03:01:09] thought you don't get political here.

John Dehlin [03:01:10] I don't. I'm just teasing.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:12] If you ask a Canadian, if you ask a bunch of Canadians that you'll have different answers. We're so welcome in there.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:19] Sure.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:20] We'll become the first.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:21] Canada has a lot of feelings. Feelings about that. That's all I'm gonna say. We have very, very big feelings.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:28] Let me. Let me tell you something without getting too political. Last night, my dad sent me a click of Roger center in Toronto, and when the national anthem came up, kidnape had of the boo. The national Act.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:42] Sure you should share that.

Ben Jalaff [03:01:43] No, but it's just like Canada. When you breach their patriotism, they get really hurt. Yeah, but.

John Dehlin [03:01:49] But yeah, I'm just teasing.

Justine Jalaff [03:01:51] Yeah. I would say that this experience was so important to us that we still came here. And despite the large anxieties that we felt for, like, days before this.

John Dehlin [03:02:02] So Maven says she wants Canada to. She wants United States to be Canada's, what, 15th province? How many provinces do you guys have?

Justine Jalaff [03:02:11] I wouldn't even know. Oh, man, that would be interesting for sure.

John Dehlin [03:02:17] Sorry. And again, we have. We have all sorts of political types on Mormon stories we support. We don't do politics here on Mormon stories. So wherever you stand on any political issue, I'm just trying to add a little humor.

Ben Jalaff [03:02:32] Everybody love everybody.

John Dehlin [03:02:33] Yeah, we love everybody. Yep.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:36] There are good people everywhere.

John Dehlin [03:02:38] Yep. Yep. All right. Well, that was beautiful and super powerful. I just can't thank you two enough for coming here, for coming all that way, and for spending. That's good. Six and a half, seven hours today.

Justine Jalaff [03:02:53] I thought this was only gonna be three.

John Dehlin [03:02:55] Well, it was the part. Two was three. Yeah. Anyway, thank you all so much. So beautiful.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:03] Thank you. Thank you for giving us this platform and thank you for giving so many people, I think a lot of people who just want to be heard and this, this is an opportunity for us to feel heard.

John Dehlin [03:03:13] Yeah.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:13] And that's just really important. So.

John Dehlin [03:03:16] But that's not it. You're going to be the Knicks Jones or whatever to future people. You know what I mean?

Ben Jalaff [03:03:23] Maybe that'd be great if people want to message me and talk about it. Sure. We'll.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:27] We'll.

Ben Jalaff [03:03:27] We'll shoot it. That's fine.

John Dehlin [03:03:28] How do they reach you guys?

Ben Jalaff [03:03:31] Just find me on Facebook messenger.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:34] I don't know. We're not.

John Dehlin [03:03:35] So it's a. Ben Halaf.

Ben Jalaff [03:03:39] Ben Halaf.

John Dehlin [03:03:39] Ben Halaf. J, A, L, A F. F. Yeah. Two Fs.

Ben Jalaff [03:03:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:03:44] Dos FS.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:45] Dos FS, I would say maybe just reach me in the comments of this YouTube video.

John Dehlin [03:03:50] Okay.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:50] Yeah. And I'll try my best to reply to the comments.

John Dehlin [03:03:53] Okay, perfect. All right, thanks, y'. All. This has been really powerful.

Justine Jalaff [03:03:57] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:03:58] And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. We couldn't do this without your donations, so those of you who do donate, thank you. Please take a minute to subscribe to this YouTube channel or to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We would love a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Likes and comments and subscriptions all help with the algorithm. Finally, if you aren't a monthly donor, but you value this type of content, the way that you can best support us is just to become a monthly donor. And we'll keep providing this content for as long as we have the support for it. We would love to invite you to apply to Beyond Mormon Stories. You can go to MormonStories.org find the application link, click on it, fill out an application, record a three minute video. Margi and I review every application and we can't accept every application, but we accept the ones that we're able to. And we're always looking for great stories. We're always looking for international stories. So today we covered Canada and Venezuela, Colombia. But if you have a Mormon story in the U.S. outside the U.S. we want to hear from you. And we're again grateful for everyone who makes this possible. And Margi had to leave, but I want to thank her as well. Thanks to Maven for doing the time codes has shown us today. Thanks to everyone who makes this possible. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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