This week, we’re sitting down with Benson Lawson, who made the bold decision to decline his Mormon mission call. In the LDS community, serving a mission is often seen as non-negotiable—an expectation placed on nearly every young man. For those who choose differently, the backlash can be overwhelming.
Benson is bravely sharing his story with us, opening up about the pressure, the stigma, and why a mission wasn’t the right path for him.
Join us as we explore the reasons why a mission is not right for everyone, and what affect this choice can have on a Mormon man in particular.
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-host: Margi Dehlin · Guest: Benson Lawson
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction: Why Benson Declined His Mission Call
John Dehlin [00:00:00] What in the world would cause a young Mormon man to apply to become a Mormon missionary and then to decline his mission call once it comes? Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, co host, John Dehlin. It is September 5, 2025, and today we are going to be interviewing a young man who recently received his call to serve a Mormon mission. And because of a series of events, once the call came and the time came to serve, he decided not to go on a mission. His name is Benson Lawson and he's joining us here in studios. Hey, Benson.
Benson Lawson [00:00:41] Hey, how's it going?
John Dehlin [00:00:43] Great. How long ago did you put your papers in?
Benson Lawson [00:00:46] I put my papers in twice, actually and got denied once. But the actual time I put it in and it got accepted was in March of 2024.
John Dehlin [00:00:55] Yeah, so like. Yeah, a year or two ago, right?
Benson Lawson [00:00:57] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:00:58] So pretty current. And if that weren't awesome enough, as always, we try to have my co host Margi with us. So Margi is in studio and she'll be co hosting today. Hey, Margi.
Margi Dehlin [00:01:11] Hi there.
John Dehlin [00:01:11] Thanks for coming.
Margi Dehlin [00:01:12] Yeah, my pleasure.
John Dehlin [00:01:13] Yeah. All right. Well, our audience loves missionary stories. And even though your story is maybe not a normal Mormon missionary story, we found your outline and your audition video to be super compelling. So anything you want to say as a disclaimer or as an intention before we jump in? Some people might want to know, why are you even doing this? You know, do you want to state an intention or just jump in?
Benson Lawson [00:01:39] I mean, disclaimer. I didn't actually go on a mission, so I don't have any real missionary stories. I never got chased with a knife or anything. But, I mean, my intention for coming here was to show other people out there that it's all right not to go on a mission. You don't have to go on a mission if you're Mormon and there are other ways of life. You don't always have to live the pure Mormon paradigm and still be a good Mormon. And you don't even have to be a Mormon for that matter. There's another way of life and the Mormon Church isn't the only way for happiness.
John Dehlin [00:02:13] And is it fair to say you were pretty in it to win it? Orthodox Mormon up until the time you applied?
Benson Lawson [00:02:20] Yeah, very much so.
John Dehlin [00:02:21] Yeah, we'll get to that.
Benson Lawson [00:02:22] It's a straight and narrow path kind of guy. Yeah, I did everything by the rules. I think something that brought me lots of success in life was having an outline of rules that I followed. And I was pretty Good at following rules. I think that's why I had a lot of success in my, I don't know, high school career. But once college hit and I had
John Dehlin [00:02:43] a little more freedom, the formula changed.
Benson Lawson [00:02:45] It just kind of shattered.
John Dehlin [00:02:47] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:02:48] But yeah, that was when I realized I could do something else my life. So, yeah, that's when things started falling apart and I had kind of a faith crisis. Like a what, a fifth life crisis? Yeah, I don't know.
John Dehlin [00:03:02] No, we'll get, we'll get into all that. So, yeah. Welcome, Benson Lawson, to Mormon Stories.
Benson Lawson [00:03:07] Thank you.
Growing Up Mormon in a Rules-Oriented Home
John Dehlin [00:03:08] All right, so where does your Mormon story begin?
Benson Lawson [00:03:10] Medford, Oregon.
John Dehlin [00:03:11] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:03:12] That's where I was born.
John Dehlin [00:03:13] Where's that?
Benson Lawson [00:03:13] It is in Southern Oregon, near the Willamette Valley. That's where I was born. I grew up in Grants Pass, Oregon. Yeah. And something I like to state about Grants Pass, Oregon, I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but there's like a, a Utah Mormon versus other Mormon kind of thing. Do you know about that?
John Dehlin [00:03:32] Yeah. Tell us about it though.
Benson Lawson [00:03:33] Yeah. So Grants Pass, Oregon, I'd say from my experience is a little bit more Utah Mormon. And eventually I moved to Redmond, Oregon, which is where I had middle school and high school. And they're a bit more other Mormon, not being as orthodox, not being as rule following.
John Dehlin [00:03:49] So the Utah Mormons are by the book.
Benson Lawson [00:03:51] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:03:51] Obnoxious, conservative, strict.
Benson Lawson [00:03:53] Well, maybe not obnoxious.
Margi Dehlin [00:03:55] Maybe we wouldn't use obnoxious.
John Dehlin [00:03:56] Sorry, what words would you describe?
Benson Lawson [00:03:59] I don't know. Obnoxious. Yeah, but yes, you get the idea. Okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:04:06] All that they feel right. They feel very right in what they're doing.
Benson Lawson [00:04:11] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:04:11] Okay. And the Oregon Mormons are more, less, more low key. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:04:17] Well, Grants Pass, Oregon.
John Dehlin [00:04:18] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:04:18] Utah style.
John Dehlin [00:04:19] Right.
Benson Lawson [00:04:19] Like I'd say there's different sects of Utah Mormons outside of Utah.
John Dehlin [00:04:23] Got it.
Benson Lawson [00:04:24] Yeah. Okay, so I grew up ages like 1 to 10 in grants pass. And I started with the very orthodox, very in line with what the Mormon Church wanted.
John Dehlin [00:04:34] Okay. All right, so where, what comes next in your story?
Benson Lawson [00:04:39] All right, so both of my parents were converts to the church. My mom wasn't raised in the Mormon Church or raised in any religion for that matter, I believe. But when she was around 14, her and her sister both converted to the Mormon Church. And then my mom and my dad, around college time, and my dad joined the Mormon Church for my mom. So my mom was baptized at 14, I think. And then my dad, when he was 18, I believe, and then they got married and then they had Me eventually in Grants Pass.
Benson Lawson [00:05:11] From there, I began to grew up after I was born, obviously. But in Grant's past, I began living a normal Mormon life. It was pretty ordinary. Or having a Mormon childhood, singing primary songs, going to church every Sunday.
Benson Lawson [00:05:31] Before elementary school, I didn't see the world outside of Mormonism because everyone I hung out with were Mormons. We had a little singing group I call as a scene group, as it was called, I think. I don't know where everyone met. At our house, all the kids my age. And we would do like primary songs. It was just a little fun music group we had. But once I got to elementary school, I made a bunch of friends and lots of which weren't Mormon. So I began to see this world outside of Mormonism.
Benson Lawson [00:06:05] But nonetheless, I still stayed in the church, obviously. And we had the missionaries come over often. And this is when the mission was reinforced in my life. When missionaries would come over, we had a list of questions to ask them. I think there's four questions. First one was, where are you from? Second one was, why did you come on your mission? Third one was, how did you pay for your mission? And then fourth one was like, fourth one didn't show up till later. But it was, do you have your Eagle Scout? And what'd you do for your Eagle Scout?
Margi Dehlin [00:06:37] But yeah, wow.
John Dehlin [00:06:39] And I'm guessing because your parents were converts, they probably had a special love for missionaries. Yeah, they loved missionaries. And. And not all, maybe Mormons would care about missionaries at the same level, but there's certainly certain active Mormons that always want to invite the missionaries over, have them over for dinner, and just really get to know them.
Benson Lawson [00:07:01] It felt like we had them over two or three times a month. Honestly, that's a lot. Over a lot.
Margi Dehlin [00:07:04] That is a lot.
Benson Lawson [00:07:05] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:07:06] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:07:06] And I always loved having them over. It was just a nice big dinner we'd have and nice just chatting it up, having the lesson afterwards. As a kid. I think it's funny when the missionaries come over if you're. I have two younger brothers and they're like, you know, both very childlike at the time, having the missionaries over. The missionaries are trying to do their lessons and the kids are being rambunctious the whole time. So it's a little fun and game. It's a little silly
Margi Dehlin [00:07:32] growing up. I'm curious, like, with your family culture and like, what did your. Your family's lived experience of Mormonism feel like? Was it very conservative? Were there a lot of rul? Did you follow all the things? Was it A little bit more relaxed.
Benson Lawson [00:07:51] So growing up the way I was raised, there's a very lots of rules. My parents were still married at the time. They eventually got divorced and my other two brothers were raised a little more lax. But for me I had a lot of rules to follow. And just from a young age this rule following was reinforced. I was very good at following these rules. And with this reinforcement a young age having to do everything right, having to do everything by the books. And with that I began to learn the importance of following the rules in the church because it's a very rule oriented church. And eventually when the church started making everything a bit more. You can choose because back early 2000s there's a set list of rules. Preach my gospel back then was more yes and no.
John Dehlin [00:08:42] That's the missionary curriculum or. Right.
Benson Lawson [00:08:46] Whereas nowadays with their. Or not Preach my gospel. Sorry. For the strength of youth. It's been a while. I'm.
John Dehlin [00:08:54] That's right. So the youth pamphlet for moral standards for youth.
Benson Lawson [00:08:58] I'd say both honestly Preach my gospel and strength. Preach my gospel and for the strength of youth. Both were very hardcore rules. Whereas nowadays it's a little bit more here are some rules you could follow but. Or here are some things that are discouraged. But then in the end it's kind of your.
John Dehlin [00:09:13] Like before it was no tattoos.
Benson Lawson [00:09:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:09:16] No multiple ear piercings for girls. No our movies. And a few years ago the church changed it to. To encourage, you know, to basically say we're not going to condemn tattoos anymore. We're not going to tell women they can't get multiple piercings.
Benson Lawson [00:09:32] It's just discouraged.
John Dehlin [00:09:34] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:09:34] That's it.
John Dehlin [00:09:34] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:09:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:09:35] So a little more autonomy.
Benson Lawson [00:09:37] Uh huh.
John Dehlin [00:09:38] Yeah. Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:09:40] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:09:41] Well were you saying you grew up with the rules? Yes, the rules version. And it sounds like for your personality and your brain, would you say that it was a good fit rules growing up when you were younger especially for sure.
Benson Lawson [00:10:00] I'm not autistic, but I think there's a little bit of it there. So the rules, the very set outline of life really fit who I was and who I am today? Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:10:11] Yep. And did you. Here's another question I have about your family, your experience of your family and home. Did you feel like the rules of the church made their way into your home as well? In other words, like your Was your home culture a bit of a mirror to the. The kind of church rules and church culture?
Benson Lawson [00:10:33] Yeah, very much so. We had family home evening every Monday night Sundays we weren't allowed to go anywhere. We weren't allowed to watch movies. We were allowed to watch like old Disney movies and church movies and like Veggie Tales, but that was it. Saturday was the only time you're allowed to play video games. My dad loved video games, so I like video games too, but yeah, yeah, but we had these rules from church making its way into my life. We had, or my home life. But we had nightly prayer, morning scripture study. My mom would take us to like the table before school and we'd read the for the Strength of Youth pamphlet. So yeah. Oh wow.
Margi Dehlin [00:11:15] Yep.
John Dehlin [00:11:16] And do you think of those years your parents were together and you were trying hard to live the Mormon lifestyle is relatively happy?
Benson Lawson [00:11:25] Yeah, I was happy.
John Dehlin [00:11:26] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:11:27] I mean towards the end of my parents marriage, it was pretty evident that, you know, things weren't going great and that this had to end eventually. But when we lived in Grants Pass up until age 10, I was pretty happy, I'd say. So everything was in line. Everything was great. I was just a kid living life colorful and stress free. So yeah, for sure.
Margi Dehlin [00:11:52] Yeah. With a layer and, and a layer of missionary like that I do think is important to kind of say a level of having maybe more than average missionary influence in, in your home, the importance of missionary work and in this case literally bringing the truth in quotation marks, you know, or salvation to, to your parents. Yeah.
Mission Expectations and Family Incentives
Benson Lawson [00:12:18] And something I want to add is that as an incentive to sub remission, my mom said that I could get a parrot after I came back or that she'd get me one. And it's a parrot because I broke my arm when I was five and I got like a beanie baby from the hospital and it was a little beanie baby parrot. I called it Jabbers. That was its name. But she said I could get a parrot when I came back from my mission. So that was my very young incentive. I don't have a parrot today.
Margi Dehlin [00:12:44] A real life parrot.
John Dehlin [00:12:46] Not just you never got the parrot. And what message did you get from the church or your family about your responsibility to serve a mission?
Benson Lawson [00:12:57] You know, I mean it felt at that age it didn't even feel like a responsibility, it felt like a requirement. Like I didn't see a life where I wouldn't serve a mission at that young age. I just felt like it was something that I was going to do before the rest of my life happened. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:13:14] So maybe moving into your teen years. How were your teen years?
Benson Lawson [00:13:18] So I moved to Redmond when I was 10. Moving to Redmond. I think a great thing about the Mormon Church Is that no matter where you go, I want to say no matter. But most places you go, you'll have people. You'll have people to turn to. Like, we moved to Redmond. Redmond, Oregon, and immediately when we got there, we were moving stuff out of our moving truck. We had people there helping us. And from that day, I made some good friends who I still talk to today. But that's the great thing about the Mormon Church that I definitely do kind of miss just having a community, having people, no matter what.
Benson Lawson [00:13:51] So in my teen years, though, everything was pretty good. Still the same Mormon outline up until about high school and freshman year of high school is when Covid hit towards the end of that year. And that was when things began to take a turn for the worse for my Mormon life back around this time. This for the strength of youth, still hadn't been revamped. It was revamped. Do you know what year exactly?
John Dehlin [00:14:17] It's a few years ago, years ago,
Benson Lawson [00:14:18] yeah, when I was in fresh freshman high school. So this had to be, I think, 2020. It was. It still hadn't been updated. So dating was still pretty, pretty strict. You can't date until you're 16. And when I was 15 is when I started having interests.
Benson Lawson [00:14:35] And with that, I met my first girlfriend. Her name was MacKenzie. And we had. We dated on, off throughout high school. And she was not Mormon. She was raised Catholic, but, I mean, she didn't really go. But she was not Mormon. I did not want to influence her to be Mormon. I'm kind of. Even at the time, I was still very. I don't want to change people. I think that's something that really made me not want to go on the mission in the end because I'm not a big fan of changing who people are.
Benson Lawson [00:15:09] And that's reflected throughout my whole life, I think. But I did not want to change who MacKenzie was. So I never, like, coerced her into coming to church. Never talked about her, too, or talked about church to her, really. I kept it out of our relationship. But yeah, our first round of dating only lasted like three months. Freshman high school. What can I say? But yeah, yeah.
High School Faith, Testimony, and Early Doubts
Margi Dehlin [00:15:34] As a freshman, would you say your testimony or so your beliefs and your lived experience of Mormonism, was it pretty intact?
Benson Lawson [00:15:44] Oh, yeah, from being perfect.
Margi Dehlin [00:15:47] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:15:47] Yeah, I was. I think I had the Aaronic priest at that time. I was at church every Sunday. My parents were still married at this time, but at this point, I could see my dad starting to falter. But nonetheless, I go to church. I'D pray for my dad a lot and I'd pray for other people. I pray a lot. I prayed a lot. I'd be writing my journal every night, studying my scriptures. I was going to seminary every morning. And this is when things like I think freshman through about junior year of high school is when I was the most Mormon. When I believed everything to be 100% true. I think had I stayed that kind of Mormon for the rest of my life, I would have done very well in the Mormon Church. But it didn't last for who I was.
John Dehlin [00:16:32] Did your faith influence your breaking up with this girlfriend the first time?
Benson Lawson [00:16:36] Not the first time.
John Dehlin [00:16:36] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:16:37] It did. The second and third time.
John Dehlin [00:16:39] Okay. Okay. Keep going. I don't. I was just making sure I was
Margi Dehlin [00:16:42] going to just observe your personal habits.
Benson Lawson [00:16:44] My habits were.
Margi Dehlin [00:16:46] They sound like you were. What would I say? Just like very all in and on it with regard to. Because you're mentioning journal, scriptures, praying a lot. So you're taking it seriously.
Benson Lawson [00:17:00] Yeah, I'm. Even then or now. And even then I do very well by having a routine for my life. Routines are what make me thrive. Waking up, I'd pray, do my scriptures and get to seminary, do some more. Be a 6am seminary where I'm from. So I was up early and then school I'd work out, come home or go to work depending what year it is. But. And then scriptures, journal, pray and do it all again. And even today I do. I have a routine that helps me succeed. Just minus the LDS stuff.
Margi Dehlin [00:17:37] Right?
Benson Lawson [00:17:38] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:17:39] So you got back together with this girl apparently after breaking up.
Benson Lawson [00:17:43] Yeah. I don't remember the exact timeline for it all but like we all we liked each other. It was just like messy with COVID and her grandparents weren't super into her dating. My parents were. They were chill with it. My parents throughout my whole life, they just want to make sure I was happy. They didn't let my happiness be taken over by the Mormon Church. They want to make sure that I'm living a good life. So very grateful for that.
Margi Dehlin [00:18:10] That's big.
Benson Lawson [00:18:11] Yeah. Next time we got together, I mean same thing pretty much. Except this time at this point school is back in section. Except for we were wearing masks and I don't know, things were great. I was still pretty Mormon.
Benson Lawson [00:18:29] And then come around next summer, sophomore year. Covid had just ended I think or it was still going around, I think. But this is the point where my uphill of life hit the peak and then went down. With respect to Mormonism. That's when my Parents got divorced and it definitely, like I said earlier, was a long time coming.
Benson Lawson [00:18:55] My dad is the band teacher at the local high school and my mom, she now works at an elementary school in a town 20 minutes north of Redmond. So my dad had been teaching and I could tell my mom or things were starting to be different because a couple years or I could tell that my parents were talking about the divorce or that was in. It was going to happen soon because my mom was working towards her master's degree for teaching and she became a teacher recently. She was a stay at home mother during my childhood, my childhood, my brother's childhood. So her getting this degree, I think was a way to prepare herself for being a single mother. Yeah,
Margi Dehlin [00:19:39] but at the time, what I'm hearing is you had a sense that it was going to happen.
Benson Lawson [00:19:47] My dad does a by not by year, every two years because he's a band teacher. He goes on a trip to Europe with the Oregon Ambassadors of Music. On this trip, he drinks a bit, smokes a bit. And I didn't know this. And I would be going to Europe for my, the summer of my junior year. So in preparation for telling me about this, he kind of told me around the time my parents were getting divorced, my mom and him had a sit down discussion with me. He's like, hey, Benson, just so you know, I'm gonna be drinking, I'll be smoking. And this took me aback.
Benson Lawson [00:20:21] My dad always drank coffee and he was a convert. He came to church only for my mom. And with that, I could always tell he was on the fence. Like he came to church, he did all the right things. He had the priesthood. My mom and him are both temple workers when they're my age, so they were very in on the church. My dad was always just in it for my family.
Benson Lawson [00:20:45] There was a time, I think it was 2016. It was when we were, we just moved to Redmond. My dad was drinking at a local like pizza place or something. And the owner of that pizza place was Mormon. Surprising to me that the owner was serving alcohol despite being Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:21:01] But all the Marriotts serve alcohol and distribute porn in their hotels. You know, it's just you. Hotel Utah that was owned by the church, used to have a bar, you know what I mean?
Benson Lawson [00:21:13] Like, what can I say? Money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the owner caught my dad drinking alcohol once and this was 2016, so I didn't know about this until I was talking with my dad pretty recently. But the owner told on my dad, Bishop brought him in and then a Stake president talked to my dad, and my dad told us, take president pretty much to F off. Because if you take this out or if you take this out on me, take us out. My family, you're going to tear my family apart. So nothing was done about it. My dad just kind of lives the life he wants to live at this time.
Margi Dehlin [00:21:49] How old were you when this was going on?
Benson Lawson [00:21:52] 12. I didn't hear anything about it. My mom didn't know anything about it. At the time. My dad was kind of just. He had his own life apart from the Mormon Church, where he did the things he wanted to.
Parents' Divorce and Its Impact on Belief
Margi Dehlin [00:22:01] Okay, so you're kind of mentioning that this time that you. You heard that your parents were being. Were getting a divorce. Right. I guess my question is, at the same time, are you aware that your dad is not really active?
Benson Lawson [00:22:17] Yes. So before the divorce, my dad had been active for like half a year or inactive for about half a year about. That's when the conversation we had was, sorry if I didn't make that clear. But up until the divorce, my dad had been pretty out of the church. And then once summer hit, my dad left the church and he still lived with us for about a year because my mom, my dad, they care. I think the great thing about their divorce is that they cared about me and my two younger brothers the whole time. They wanted what was best for us, no matter what happened with them.
Benson Lawson [00:22:51] So my dad stayed with us for about a year. He lived in the shed out back, but eventually moving, got his own apartment. And with the divorce agreements and all that, my two brothers got split custody. And because I was on my way out of high school, they let me choose. So I chose full custody for my mom. And the split custody between my brothers will be important later, but it's the reason why they are a little bit more lax with the church.
Benson Lawson [00:23:17] And this, with this divorce. This is definitely the beginning of the. My family falling out of the Mormon Church. Before this, we were like, one of the core families in the ward. Like, I don't know how. How it is in Utah, but there's definitely like a few select families that are like, I don't know, the big parts in the ward. Like, you see them there every Sunday. They always go to every activity. That is what the family we were was. But this definitely changed there.
Margi Dehlin [00:23:47] Okay. So I guess something that comes up for me is you're describing yourself as, like, really appreciating rules. It's a comfort to you. You have a routine. So how did it impact, Like, I'm it feels layered. It feels like you're experiencing your dad and having a journey maybe away from Mormonism. Did that, did that affect you? I guess is my question. And then the divorce too. It feels like you have a couple layers that might. I. I guess I'll ask you, how did it impact you those two things?
Benson Lawson [00:24:25] When my parents got divorced, like when they told it was a temple divorce,
John Dehlin [00:24:29] they'd been temple married, they were temple
Benson Lawson [00:24:31] married, but I didn't know anything that happened on that level. I talked to my dad pretty recently about it and he says they didn't do any of the paper, any of the paperwork. Like they're still paperwork wise. Sealed. Still sealed, yes.
John Dehlin [00:24:44] But civil.
Benson Lawson [00:24:45] They didn't really care enough to go and get all done. Yeah, I think. Does it cost a lot of money or something?
John Dehlin [00:24:50] It's just a hassle. There's a lot of paperwork and it's not fun.
Benson Lawson [00:24:52] Yeah. So I'm pretty sure there's no need
John Dehlin [00:24:55] unless the woman is wanting to be resealed to a new husband.
Benson Lawson [00:25:01] So as far as Mormonism goes, my dad and mom are still celestially married.
John Dehlin [00:25:05] Okay, I get that. That happened to me. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:25:08] Yeah. As far as myself goes, though, the divorce did hit me pretty hard. It was the first time where I think I felt like the genuine sadness of loss in my life. But it did not affect my routine at all. If anything, it gave me more motivation to be a good Mormon. I prayed a lot more for my dad, for him to come back to the church because, like the only thing it did is it brought a lot of questions about what's going to happen to my family in the afterlife. This is when I started doing a bit of digging. Like this is the first time I started looking into questions about divorce because it's a very opaque region. I talked, I didn't do any like outside digging, but I asked a lot of my church friends, church adults, and honestly I never got a clear answer.
John Dehlin [00:25:52] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:25:53] But I think what I settled on was that my mom and my dad not being married wouldn't affect our celestial eternal family. Because I settled on that because that's what felt right for me.
John Dehlin [00:26:08] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:26:08] And it may not be necessarily what the church says is true. Like isn't what the church goes by, that with the divorce the man can remarry but the woman can't unless a man chooses her. Is that correct?
John Dehlin [00:26:23] I mean, I don't. For as long as I was a member and paying attention, the man could remarry as many women as he wanted to and get sealed to them all. In other words, have multiple plural wives sealed to him in the hereafter. But if the woman wanted to get sealed to a different man than her original husband, they had to fill out all the paperwork and have the original ceiling canceled. Because forever, a woman could only be sealed to one man. But a man could be sealed to as many wives as he wanted.
Benson Lawson [00:27:02] Okay. Yeah. But.
John Dehlin [00:27:03] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:04] I didn't know any of that.
John Dehlin [00:27:05] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:06] I never got straight answers.
John Dehlin [00:27:07] No.
Benson Lawson [00:27:08] Because everyone gave me different answers.
John Dehlin [00:27:09] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:09] So I just settled on what I felt was right.
John Dehlin [00:27:11] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:12] What I wanted to believe.
John Dehlin [00:27:13] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:13] Which was that I'm still going to be going to the celestial kingdom. I'd still be sealed to my mom with my dad. I don't know.
John Dehlin [00:27:22] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:27:22] I don't know about my dad.
John Dehlin [00:27:23] It all get worked out in the year.
Benson Lawson [00:27:24] It all works out. We'll be happy in the end. That's what matters.
John Dehlin [00:27:27] And that's pretty much the church's. That's the only real doctrine the church has today.
Benson Lawson [00:27:31] Yeah. Everything's changing, but they always keep that.
John Dehlin [00:27:33] I think God's fair and loving and everyone will be happy.
Benson Lawson [00:27:36] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:27:36] You know, hey, what's.
Benson Lawson [00:27:38] What's bad about that?
John Dehlin [00:27:38] Yeah, it's good.
Margi Dehlin [00:27:40] Did you worry about your dad? Did you have.
Benson Lawson [00:27:43] I worried about my dad a lot. I prayed, like I said, I prayed a lot about him. I really want him to come back to the church. I never, like, talk to him about it because something that's going to be important, I think, later on and that's reflected in my life is that my dad often doesn't get very emotional. We never really have deep conversations. And this is, I think, a trait for the male Lawson in my family. Like, my dad doesn't really get deep. My grandpa. Same there. I've never really had super deep conversations with my dad or my. Or his dad. And I think that kind of reflected on me. I was never one who shared a lot about my emotions, so I coincidentally, I never really took these things to him. Took my worries about our future in heaven. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:28:35] Plus, he didn't believe. So what's he going to help? How's he going to help you resolve the ceiling situation? The afterlife, if he doesn't necessarily believe any of that is true anymore?
Benson Lawson [00:28:46] I mean, like you said, it all works out in the end.
John Dehlin [00:28:48] Yeah. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:28:49] And that's like I was maybe, like I was resting on the idea that maybe, you know, 20 years from now, you'll see the truth. You'll see the light. So he comes back.
John Dehlin [00:28:55] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:28:56] Yeah.
Dating, Boy Scouts, and Church Social Life
John Dehlin [00:28:56] Did the church impact Your dating life at all, your beliefs in the church, and if so, how.
Benson Lawson [00:29:00] Yeah. So after the divorce, I think around this time, I was back together with Mackenzie, the non member. Yeah. Still not a member. Never became a member. But we broke up second time. We dated, like, throughout sophomore year, and they broke up second time. I forget when exactly, but I remember when I broke up with her that time. I remember, like, the explicit things I told her is that I don't see myself marrying you. I don't see having an eternal life with you. Because she wasn't Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:29:30] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:29:31] So the Mormon Church definitely impacted my dating life and the reason I chose to break up with her at that time. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:29:39] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:29:40] And then. Or. Sorry.
John Dehlin [00:29:41] And how are you feeling about the looming mission?
Benson Lawson [00:29:45] This was junior year, so it was still far off my mind.
John Dehlin [00:29:49] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:29:50] I didn't begin worrying about it until, like, senior year when I started having to apply for colleges scholarships and admission. But at this point, I was okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:29:58] And then your experience of school, school and kind of your identity in high school, how would you describe that?
Benson Lawson [00:30:04] Okay. Junior year, I took AP U.S. history. And in that class, we learned a lot about the history of the US and with that, the Mormonism was mentioned in the, like, late 18th century, early 19th century. There's, like a bunch of religions appearing, like the Oneidas, the Shakers, and then the Mormons were there with them. That was my first thing is like, are we just another one of those religions? Why did we last so much longer? Or why do we have such a much bigger population than the remaining ones today? There was that and then the Mormon Meadows Massacre. That was mentioned in the history book Mountain Meadows Massacre. Oh, sorry.
John Dehlin [00:30:48] No, it's good.
Benson Lawson [00:30:49] Okay. Yeah, Mountain Meadows Massacre. Yeah, there's that and this. That took me aback. I had never heard about that.
John Dehlin [00:30:57] Those who don't know, that's when Mormons in southern Utah killed like, 100 to 120 pioneers traveling from Arkansas to California and dressed up as Indians to make it look like the Indians did it. But it was a massacre of, like, 100 to 120 men, women and children.
Benson Lawson [00:31:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:31:15] And Mormons did it.
Benson Lawson [00:31:16] And a NETFLIX documentary or something. Documentary, But a show dramatized American Primeval. Yeah, Yeah, I watched it pretty good.
John Dehlin [00:31:24] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:31:25] Yeah. So I learned about that. That took me aback. I asked questions. I read ahead in the textbook. So I knew about it before it was lectured on reading it in the textbook. I took it to one of my respected adults in the church, and basically the answer I got was that it was a different sect Of Mormons. There was a different sex.
John Dehlin [00:31:44] No, that's not true.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:46] That's a new one I haven't heard.
John Dehlin [00:31:48] I'd never heard that either. Yeah, no, that was mainstream Mormons. I guess they were probably confusing them with the FLDS. Yeah. That live in southern. Southern Utah. But the FLDS hadn't developed yet in 1850s because polygamy was still okay in the mainstream Mormon church in the 1850s. So.
Benson Lawson [00:32:04] Yeah, so I was. I guess I got lied to, apparently.
John Dehlin [00:32:07] Probably unintentionally.
Benson Lawson [00:32:08] Yeah. And then when it was lectured on in class, I was like, the Mormon. The one Mormon in class, for reference, my high school, in my grade, there were two Mormons, and then there's a couple others in the younger grades. But in Redmond, we had a pretty small Mormon community. And so I was like the Mormon. Everyone knew me. I was the Mormon. Everyone brought questions to me about Mormonism like, oh, you can't drink caffeine, you can't drink soda. Stuff like that. But when it was brought up in class, they talked to me about the massacre, and I gave them the answer that I received. It was a different sect of Mormons. We're the good ones. Don't worry. Yeah. That was the biggest point in high school, I think with a little doubt I had with Mormonism actually affecting my high school career. And I'd say that's it for my junior year of high school.
Margi Dehlin [00:33:03] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:33:03] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:33:04] Did you attend young men's and did you enjoy young men's?
Benson Lawson [00:33:08] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:33:09] Steak dances and youth activities and all that?
Benson Lawson [00:33:12] I did. I don't know if there was a Mormon thing. I was there.
John Dehlin [00:33:15] And you enjoyed.
Margi Dehlin [00:33:16] Oh, yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:33:17] I had a great mutual.
John Dehlin [00:33:18] Whatever it's called, Young men's Young ones.
Benson Lawson [00:33:20] Yeah. And I guess this is a little bit in the past, but I did get my Eagle Scout I got when I was 14. I think the mourn church left or they took a back or took out Scouts. And it's. The reason I heard it was for my mom was because the Scouts were having homosexual leaders. Was there anything else?
John Dehlin [00:33:39] Well, that's what they told everyone. But the real reason was because there was so much sexual abuse happening in the church that the Boy Scouts had so many claims against it that they ended up going bankrupt. And the church was a big part of that. So it was really around sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, liability. But the way it was spun to Mormons was, oh, the Boy Scouts are becoming liberal, you know, letting the gays in, you know, that kind of thing.
Benson Lawson [00:34:08] I like this. I'm Learning stuff.
John Dehlin [00:34:12] You didn't know that?
Benson Lawson [00:34:12] I didn't know that.
John Dehlin [00:34:13] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:34:16] I was one of the last Mormons, I think, in the US or not in the US Just like one of the last Mormons ever to get there.
John Dehlin [00:34:22] Eagle Scout.
Benson Lawson [00:34:23] Yes. I got like.
John Dehlin [00:34:24] What year was that? 22.
Benson Lawson [00:34:26] I couldn't tell you.
John Dehlin [00:34:27] That's fine.
Benson Lawson [00:34:28] I don't know. I was 14 at the time. Yeah, do the math. It's like 2018.
John Dehlin [00:34:32] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:34:32] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:34:33] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:34:33] If that's right. But like, I got it in December. For reference, my birthday's on December 23rd.
John Dehlin [00:34:38] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:34:39] So I got like right after my birthday and then the new year hit, and that's when Boy Scouts were out.
Margi Dehlin [00:34:44] Okay, you slid in. You slid in with the.
Benson Lawson [00:34:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:34:49] Okay. So your senior year, anything important for your Mormon story?
First Love and a Pivotal Summer Trip
Benson Lawson [00:34:53] Okay. I feel like as far as interesting things in my life goes, it begins around here over the summer between junior and senior year. That trip. I mentioned earlier that my dad goes on to Europe every year where he drinks and stuff. I went on that trip. I got to go to Europe with the Oregon Ambassadors of Music. We had like a three day band camp at Oregon State University.
Benson Lawson [00:35:17] We played a bunch of like, patriotic tunes, some tunes for like, France, I think one of the country's national anthems. But we. The countries we toured in were France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And basically the whole crux of the trip was we got to go to all these countries. There's like a big 300 student band, a big choir. We go around, play concerts in every country and just kind of be tourists for a while. And this is from high schoolers all over the state of Oregon just going out and hanging out. And there's a bunch of different groups, groups of, they call it buses. I was on the line bus, and it was from students within the central Oregon area.
Benson Lawson [00:36:00] On that bus, there's two Mormons. There's me, and then a girl who lived in a town about 20 minutes north of me named Olivia. At this point, MacKenzie and I were still dating, but Olivia and I, we were like the only two Mormons. And in my outline, I have her label as Mormon. Mormons or Mormon. But yeah, so she was Mormon, but not really. I really know that, but.
John Dehlin [00:36:28] Meaning she didn't live the standards.
Benson Lawson [00:36:30] Yes, I thought she lived the standards. She lit the standards for me and she made it look like she was a good Mormon because she liked me. Yeah, but so on the trip, I was still with MacKenzie at this time. I wanted to be a good boyfriend, so I didn't do too much with Olivia, but we kind of hit off. We were pretty good friends.
Benson Lawson [00:36:54] And after the trip ended, it was a fun trip, by the way. Great time in all the countries I loved. My favorite town was probably Rothenburg in Germany. It's a city, very medieval, surrounded by a wall. Had a great time there.
Benson Lawson [00:37:08] But after Europe, after coming home, Olivia and I had hit things off pretty well as friends. And we kept in contact, chatting, and just like, she was mormon, I was mormon. We were pretty good friends. They're both kind of attracted to each other. So I had this little inner conflict. Do I stay with Mackenzie, who's not a mormon, or do I get with Olivia, who is a Mormon? It's was a tough. A tough cookie to crumble, I don't know. But mackenzie and I did end up breaking up. And then about a month later, Olivia and I got together. I'd like to think that I didn't cheat on mackenzie, but it may look that way. I like that. I personally like to think I didn't.
John Dehlin [00:37:53] But we're not judging you.
Benson Lawson [00:37:54] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:37:55] To be clear, not a bishop's situation here. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember how. So was there. Did you agonize. You're describing an inner conflict with regard to the. Did you agonize about that? Did it feel, you know, in retrospect? Maybe I'll ask now. Are you feeling like you made the decision with church in mind? That was kind of the breaker around the breakup.
Benson Lawson [00:38:27] Yeah. This was the last time. Mackenzie and I, like, this is the end of our on and off dating throughout high school. And it was a big inner conflict. It was really tough to make the decision. And in retrospect, I feel very guilty about the decisions I made because I was still a locked in Mormon then. But looking back on it now, the decisions I made weren't with, like, what I wanted with my. What. They weren't with what I wanted in my mind or mackenzie's mind. They were with what the church wanted with what my eternity, my eternal salvation had in mind. So I did not break up with mackenzie solely because I wanted to be with Olivia. It was solely because. Just Mormonism. She wasn't Mormon. That was like the. I think the big.
John Dehlin [00:39:12] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:39:13] A big factor.
John Dehlin [00:39:13] Sure.
Benson Lawson [00:39:14] To why I ended up getting with Olivia.
Margi Dehlin [00:39:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:39:16] Totally normal.
Margi Dehlin [00:39:16] That's right. That makes sense.
Benson Lawson [00:39:18] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:39:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:39:20] Yep. Mormons are supposed to date Mormons full stop.
Benson Lawson [00:39:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Panic Attacks and Mental Health Struggles
John Dehlin [00:39:26] So what happens next?
Benson Lawson [00:39:27] So up next, Olivia and I are dating. We. This is senior year in high school, before the mission call, before college. All of that. I'm like thinking about it. The time is now. All the stress is beginning to build up. Like I had to do all this now. And over Thanksgiving break, I have a really bad panic attack, like on the floor, sobbing and like shaking kind of thing. And I had never had anything like that in my life.
John Dehlin [00:39:53] Wow.
Benson Lawson [00:39:54] I was, like I said earlier, not a very emotional person. And I was a very stressed person though.
Margi Dehlin [00:39:58] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:39:59] Like I'm always very stressed. Always stressed about school, making sure I'm doing enough in life.
Margi Dehlin [00:40:03] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:40:04] Being a good Mormon. And I felt like at this point over that Thanksgiving break, it just kind of all came out.
John Dehlin [00:40:09] What was that? What was mounting? What pressure?
Margi Dehlin [00:40:12] What were the different pressures in that moment?
Benson Lawson [00:40:15] So there was school, college.
John Dehlin [00:40:20] Were you running?
Benson Lawson [00:40:21] Running? I liked running.
John Dehlin [00:40:22] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:40:22] I love working out.
John Dehlin [00:40:23] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:40:23] Yeah. I mean, I was in cross country at the time, so running is a way I deal with stress. So that didn't have anything to do with it. But school, I was in AP chemistry at the time. That was rough. But I'm a chemistry minor now, so it's in the past. Yeah. But there's that panic attack.
John Dehlin [00:40:43] School, college, mission.
Benson Lawson [00:40:45] Yeah. Just everything you'd expect from a high school senior.
John Dehlin [00:40:48] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:40:49] Yeah. Where it's kind of like the applications are right there. Would you say also were you very high achieving? Were you very perfectionistic? Was that part of it?
Benson Lawson [00:40:58] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was. At the end of senior year, I was a valedictorian.
Margi Dehlin [00:41:01] Yeah. Oh.
Benson Lawson [00:41:02] At my school.
Margi Dehlin [00:41:02] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:41:03] 4.6 GPA. Oh, wow. On a 4.0 scale.
John Dehlin [00:41:06] Oh.
Benson Lawson [00:41:07] From like AP classes in college stuff. And that is definitely attributed to the rule following aspect. I'm very good at following the rules and I see classrooms and learning just like another set of rules pretty much. But yeah, I was very high achieving, so I felt like I had to be doing everything all the time. I was in a ton of clubs, I was doing a sport every season. I was also in band, which was a year round thing. So I was always doing something. My days, my schedules were always packed. And then I was working too.
John Dehlin [00:41:35] That's a lot.
Benson Lawson [00:41:36] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:41:36] This is. It sounds exhausting.
Benson Lawson [00:41:38] Honestly, like I'm. Now I'm doing like not even half as much as that. And it's still just exhausting sometimes. Like I can't. Looking back on life, I can't imagine doing that much again. I can't even imagine how I did it at the time. Yeah, it was just a rough life, doing something all the time.
John Dehlin [00:41:56] I get that. And early morning seminary, waking up at 6:30? Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot.
Benson Lawson [00:42:02] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:42:02] Okay. So panic attack. That's pretty. I mean, that you kind of feel like you want to die when you have a panic attack. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:42:09] Like, it was, like, two hours long.
Margi Dehlin [00:42:11] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:42:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:42:13] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [00:42:14] I'm so sorry.
John Dehlin [00:42:15] What happened after that?
Benson Lawson [00:42:17] This was Thanksgiving. I turned 18 come my birthday in December, and after that is when I started applying for a mission on my mission application. And to preface, I've never been honest about my mental health or what I'm feeling. Just like I said, I'm an emotionally close person, but on this mission application, I decided to, like, be honest for the first time in my life.
Benson Lawson [00:42:44] On the application, there's a whole bunch of sections about mental health and, like, experiences you've had in life. On, like, the area about anxiety, I talked about. I have a history of anxiety in my family, with my dad, my grandpa. I feel symptoms of it a lot with school. Under the depression section, I talked about COVID Covid was really rough for me. It was one of, like, the lower points of my life. I talked about that. And then under the panic attack section, I talked about the panic attack that I had.
Benson Lawson [00:43:10] And that all got submitted. And with that, I got my or I noticed back from them, the mission department, a couple months later. And we were all wondering, like, why is it taking so long? Why haven't I gotten anything? And then we get back and it's like, you can't serve your mission right now. And this was a really big, like, stab in the heart for me because just before this, there had been a talk from President Nelson. Couldn't tell you which one it was, but there's a quote he says that goes like any able and willing person who wants to submission should and can submission.
Benson Lawson [00:43:53] I was able. I was willing. Or at least I thought I was. So I applied, and I didn't get called, and it was just heartbreaking for me. Not get called my mission.
Margi Dehlin [00:44:02] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:44:03] And there's probably other kids who had similar or worse symptoms who maybe didn't mention it or. And. And so you might have felt like you were punished for. For being honest and for having. Especially around Covid time.
Benson Lawson [00:44:18] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:44:19] Probably some pretty normal anxiety and depression symptoms during a really difficult time for everyone. Right.
Margi Dehlin [00:44:26] For a global pandemic, we would expect anxiety. That.
John Dehlin [00:44:30] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:44:30] Would be something that makes sense.
John Dehlin [00:44:32] Maybe. I don't know.
Benson Lawson [00:44:33] No. Yeah, that's definitely one of the things I talked about with my mom a lot. Like, this is one of the harder, harder points in my life, like, dealing with the not being Able to go on my mission. But I had a lot of talks with my mom just about like, being honest. And it got spit back in my face for being honest for once in my life about my mental health. And it was just really rough for me.
John Dehlin [00:44:57] Yeah, I can see, especially with how high achieving you are and your high status believer in the ward. Everyone's expecting you to apply for your mission and get your call. And then if it gets delayed, then you have to tell everybody, oh, it was delayed. And then of course, Mormon mind is like, what's he into porn? Did he have sex? And it's shaming if you don't get an immediate mission call when you apply. I'm guessing.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:26] Tell me, was that true for you?
Benson Lawson [00:45:28] This is exactly like. You got it word for word. Exactly what happened? Pretty much.
John Dehlin [00:45:32] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:45:34] And for reference, at this point in the church, I'm first counselor in the priest quorum. I'm placing the sacrament every Sunday. And I was like senior seminary class president, too.
John Dehlin [00:45:46] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:45:46] So I'm basically like the.
John Dehlin [00:45:47] Yeah. Gold model.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:48] The model.
Benson Lawson [00:45:49] The role model.
John Dehlin [00:45:50] Peter Priesthood.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:55] You were like, the church did not get that memo on me.
Benson Lawson [00:45:59] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:45:59] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:46:00] And even with my, like, high academic achievements at this time. Yeah. This. I took this as not a setback, but a failure. And failure is just a rough thing for me to deal with having. Not having to face it.
John Dehlin [00:46:13] Often they don't hear about valedictorians denied a mission.
Benson Lawson [00:46:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:46:18] More faithful Mormon valedictorians who are said, you can't serve. You know. Yeah. Or at least have to be delayed. Right.
Benson Lawson [00:46:27] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:46:28] Yeah. Okay. So how'd that go?
Benson Lawson [00:46:32] So when the mission denies someone their mission call, they send you a counselor to talk about your mental health. And the counselor I got was super cool. We only met a couple times because I told her, hey, I'm fine now. It was in the past. I wasn't buying. But at this point, I really wanted to serve my mission again if I have to.
Margi Dehlin [00:46:58] Yeah, you did fix it. Is that it?
Benson Lawson [00:47:00] Yeah. I just. I needed to go on my mission. I didn't want it to interfere with my college too much. I didn't want to put my life too much on hold because it does that you have to take two years out of your life to serve a mission. And I didn't want to go to college for two years, be a sophomore, then go on a mission and come back two years later.
Benson Lawson [00:47:17] Like, I wanted to go on mission, ideally before college. I could do college all in one go. But that's not how it worked out. Or it's not how it was going to work out. But I had a meeting with the counselor, told her I was all right. She believed me, Everything was good on her end. But then there was this test, I think. I don't know what test it's called. I think like police officers and other people have to take it too. But it gauges like your mental health and well being. It's like 200 questions. After taking it, my result was that I was baking, being all right. I don't know how it told them, but I mean, it got me right.
John Dehlin [00:47:56] So I wonder if that's called the mm. If it was the mmpi.
Benson Lawson [00:47:59] I think it was okay. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:48:01] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:48:02] Do you know what is that?
John Dehlin [00:48:03] Oh, I.
Margi Dehlin [00:48:05] Would you describe it?
John Dehlin [00:48:05] I think a personality assessment, but it definitely is used not so much to diagnose, but to see what people's personalities are like, whether they have personality disorders and. Or whether they're lying or faking or hiding things. Honestly. Mmpi.
Benson Lawson [00:48:26] Yeah, I took that.
John Dehlin [00:48:27] Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Wow. I must have gone to grad school.
Margi Dehlin [00:48:33] Look at that memory. Could we have a minute? Let's have a minute.
John Dehlin [00:48:36] I could have gotten it wrong, but that's my memory. Anyway, we digress. Keep going.
Waiting for the Mission Call While Faith Wavers
Benson Lawson [00:48:40] Yeah. So after the mission department got that notice back of my result, there was a very long waiting period. During this time I was like, there's a week, two week intervals in between these back and forth. The mission department, because they're pretty big company basically, and they're getting back to one person like me. So during this time, rather than feeling like a member, a person, a missionary, I just felt like a number another person in their books to go out there and get more members, get more people to pay tithing. That's how I felt like I was being treated. I didn't feel like I was being treated by God.
Benson Lawson [00:49:21] I felt like I was being treated by people. People who don't care about me, people who don't really need me. And it was definitely a rough time. And during this time as well. I'm applying for colleges. Sorry, college is plural. College is singular. I applied and got into BYU and I had deferred my mission for two years. I had gotten a two year deferment. I didn't get any scholarships from byu. Surprisingly, that was a really.
John Dehlin [00:49:48] As a valedictorian, that's strange.
Benson Lawson [00:49:50] Weird for me. And I spent a lot of time on my essays too. I had a couple random, like small scholarships from my local area. But BYU is cheap, so it didn't really matter. Yeah, I didn't apply for any other colleges. I didn't really apply for anything that didn't apply to my Mormon path in life. So I didn't get noticed that I wouldn't be serving my mission until late June. And for reference, I applied in March. And the whole back and forth lasted that long from like March to June, basically. And it was a long, long time.
Margi Dehlin [00:50:26] Can you just take a minute and describe what it felt like to be in the waiting place of that. Do you remember how you felt from March to June? Just kind of waiting for a response.
Benson Lawson [00:50:39] Okay. Super anxious. I'm someone who likes to. I don't procrastinate at all. I like having things done as soon as I can. So having something out of my control was definitely like defeating. I can't do anything about this. This was beyond my hands. It was in God's hands. Now it's just the way I looked at it. But I knew it would work out in the end.
Benson Lawson [00:50:59] And this is also a rough time for Olivia and I because the mission was this looming dread throughout our whole relationship. There was one time at the beginning of our relationship where she's like. She told me, like, we only have 30 times less we'll see each other because she assumed we see each other like once a week because we have live 30 minutes away from each other. So she told me that once. But the mission was this looming dread throughout her whole relationship. And as it came closer, I still didn't know whether I was going. I didn't know if Olivia was going to stay with me or break up with me.
Benson Lawson [00:51:33] I didn't know if I was going to get Deer John or whatever would happen. But yeah, yeah, towards the end of our relationship, like end of senior year, I could tell that she was on our way out of the church. I could tell that she wasn't the person I thought she was.
Benson Lawson [00:51:50] And when we broke up, she like, told me this, told me the different life she was living outside of the Mormon Church. There's a time when I asked her a bunch of questions. At this point in the senior year, I was a very critical thinker. I began having some Mormon questions. I'd say this is the beginning of my faith crisis because I asked her a question or just using logic, I put together that gay people can't be in heaven and black people can't be in heaven or in the celestial kingdom, at least. Because to be in the celestial kingdom, you can't be gay. To be in the celestial kingdom, you can't be black or I guess that's not locked in.
Benson Lawson [00:52:26] But I made the connection that the Lamanites were cursed, and they're cursed with the skin of darkness. So if you're cursed with the skin of darkness, are you made white when you go to heaven? That's the question I had. And interesting.
John Dehlin [00:52:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:52:40] And I just kind of answered it for myself using history of the Mormon Church, the way they had things. And I, like, asked Olivia these things and she. I remember telling her, telling me once that, wow, you're making me question my faith. But. And I took these things to my bishop, and he was. He gave me the answer to make things, like, look right in my head. He's like, no, it works out in the end. Don't worry.
John Dehlin [00:53:05] No, I never thought of that. But Mormon doctrine is that your dark skin is a curse, and when you are righteous and exalted, everything will be made white. So, yeah, no black or Native Americans would be allowed in heaven. Mormon heaven, technically.
Benson Lawson [00:53:24] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:53:25] Kingdom. Anyway, at this point, I never thought of that.
Benson Lawson [00:53:27] I'm seeing the. I'm seeing problems with the celestial kingdom where everyone's basically just a nice pure Aryan. Like, all the imperfections are taken away, but the quote, unquote, perfections are just being white, being blonde.
Margi Dehlin [00:53:43] What is the ideal?
Benson Lawson [00:53:45] Yeah, it's like all the tattoos are just taken in erasure, too. I remember there was a person in my ward who once told me about. They knew someone with down syndrome and that this person with down syndrome would be made clean in a celestial kingdom. They'd be made without down syndrome. They'd be perfected. And I don't know, just hearing that at that age, it just felt kind of gut wrenching, like, yeah, we love this person, but we'd love them more if they didn't have down syndrome in heaven. And this is like the point in my life where I'm seeing just all these little. This is like, where my shelf started getting built, I'd say. But yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:54:30] And this is, to be clear, is this senior year?
Benson Lawson [00:54:32] Yeah, this is still senior year. Still in the point where, like, I'm just waiting on my mission call because, like, I expected my mission call to be a nice, linear, easy process, but it's rough. It's a very rugged path. So naturally, my faith is pretty rugged right now, too. Although I'm still doing everything right. I'm just having these little thoughts. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:54:55] I'll just say from the church's perspective, not to defend them, but my understanding is anxiety and depression rates and early mission return rates have skyrocketed over the past. Definitely during COVID but also over the past five to 10 years. Like almost a double digit percentage of Mormon missionaries are returning home early from their missions. And an astronomical percentage of Mormon missionaries have significant anxiety or depression. So I'm guessing, if I can just maybe guess, the church wanted to make sure you were healthy and wants to make sure they have healthy missionaries so they don't have to pay for and subsidize and. Or train people, get them out there and then have them come home early.
Benson Lawson [00:55:45] Yeah, that was the exact reason why, like they didn't want me to come home early. Yeah, that was, I think, a good enough reason.
John Dehlin [00:55:52] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:55:52] But in my head at the time, like, I knew I'm a very steadfast person. I stick with goals. Yeah. I don't quit. So I knew like, if I went out, I might be like super depressed, I might be having a horrible time, but I'd stick with it to the end.
John Dehlin [00:56:04] That's not good for you.
Margi Dehlin [00:56:05] Oh, gosh. Yeah. That's a bit gut wrenching.
Benson Lawson [00:56:08] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:56:08] Yeah. Oh, I. So I wanted to ask you during this time from let's just say the panic attack on. I'm just feeling all the stress for you. I'm curious about coping. I'm just curious about your resources or if you were able to see a therapist or like, how did you cope with the high levels of anxiety that you were experiencing?
Benson Lawson [00:56:37] Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that. That was a point I missed. But I still have yet to actually talk to a therapist. I'm not great about explaining my feelings to others, but at this point is when I did find a coping mechanism for myself that works great for me. I still employ it to this day, but it's writing poetry, getting my feelings out on paper, getting my feelings stated, like in an indirect way works really well for me. And that was like the mechanism I used, I guess. And. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:09] So during this time you started writing.
Benson Lawson [00:57:11] Yeah, this is when I started writing. And writing is just a hobby for me. I love writing, I love reading. And poetry was just a means that helped me deal with my emotions and it works great for me. And like, I feel like modern day, I don't really need a therapist because poetry, it works nice. I'm happy.
John Dehlin [00:57:30] Okay.
Benson Lawson [00:57:31] Yeah. But at the time I think a therapist would have been highly beneficial for me.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:35] Right.
Benson Lawson [00:57:35] Yeah. And.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:37] Oh, sorry.
Benson Lawson [00:57:37] Oh, yeah. I just. Something I regret was not seeing a therapist, not being honest with the therapist. But it worked out. So.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:45] Yeah, that's right. And it's Interesting. So writing. Was this connected at all to journal writing, or was it completely different that that first time you sat and wrote a poem or, you know, do you remember, was it associated with, like, the time that you would normally journal?
Poetry, Coping, and Life at BYU
Benson Lawson [00:58:02] Right.
Margi Dehlin [00:58:02] And then you wrote a poem, or did you literally just sort of midday, take out a sheet of paper and. Just curious. From the creative.
Benson Lawson [00:58:11] So I started writing because I had my. My AP literature teacher in high school. Name is Mrs. Menstein. Still a great friend of mine till this day. But she's super into poetry, super into literature, and she recommended that maybe I write poetry because I felt comfort, comfortable enough around her to come to her with my problems, tell her what's going on, and she recommended poetry. So that's when I started writing. But my poetry writing versus my journal writing, very different. It's black and white. My journal is just very.
Benson Lawson [00:58:41] I'm a horrible journal writer. It's just very black and white. Just kind of like statements like, today I went to school, the day I did, this day did that. Never feelings, never emotions. It's just I kind of write my journal what I want, what I.
Benson Lawson [00:58:55] What I want my kids to see in, like, 20 years. I want them to see that everything's all right, that I'm being a good person, doing everything right. That's what I wanted my journal to be. But I did poetry on my own time. It was just a hobby. Never during my journal or. Deborah. Sorry. Never during my journal time. It was a completely different thing.
Margi Dehlin [00:59:14] Wow, that's really beautiful. Thanks for explaining how that kind of emerged for you. It makes a lot of sense. And don't we love a good teacher, a connected teacher?
Benson Lawson [00:59:26] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:59:27] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [00:59:27] She's amazing.
John Dehlin [00:59:29] So there's your mission call return and your BYU stuff.
Benson Lawson [00:59:33] Okay, so end of June, beginning of July, around that timeline was when the mission department, like, finally got back to me. Took a long time, and they said, we don't want you. Do you have to take a year deferment for your mission? Just have some time at college first, then reapply.
Benson Lawson [00:59:52] So I forget when BYU starts exactly. I think it's late August. But at this point in my life, graduation had came and gone. Olivia and I had broken up because she was going off to college. And this period between the summer of. Between senior year and freshman year of college, I felt like high school gives a very, very good regiment, very good routine. And that was stripped away from me. So it's definitely a rough time of figuring out what am I doing with my life, because right after I graduated, I Still hadn't had this answer about the mission call yet. I still hadn't guaranteed my BYU or told BYU I was coming this year, not two years from now.
Benson Lawson [01:00:33] So it's just this waiting period, this grace period. But then when I did get notified that I had to wait a year for my mission, I got to BYU or got back to them, told them not going on mission, coming to you this year.
Benson Lawson [01:00:51] So in the span of like two months, I got my BYU scheduled together. I got books bought, I got an apartment. And for reference, freshmen usually stay in the dorms. But at this point I hadn't done anything with housing yet. Cause I expected I was going on a mission. Right. I put my life on hold for the mission, but then last minute I found out I'm not going. So I was like, what am I doing? So I had to get in an apartment. We found like little ways around the dorms, but I lived in an apartment for my freshman year. But in the span of two months, I went from Redmond, got everything ready at BYU and moved to Utah. And there it was like mid August.
Margi Dehlin [01:01:27] Wow.
Benson Lawson [01:01:28] That was just a. Definitely a time just like scrappling things together and.
Margi Dehlin [01:01:32] Yeah, yeah. Would you, would you say, you know, when you heard that you like going on a mission actually wasn't going to be an option for you, immediately, did you feel rejected? Did you feel kind of this sense of like, oh, so they're saying I'm not good enough?
Benson Lawson [01:01:51] Yeah, definitely, yeah. Something I'm very good at though is coming back from things strong, like getting rejected. There's definitely like a two day period where I felt defeated, felt like a failure, felt like I wasn't good enough to be a Mormon, to be a success in their eyes. But after that little period passed, I was back into it, doing the things I needed to do, doing the things that I thought would make me happy, that I thought I needed to do to be happy. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:02:20] So how'd you like BYU as a freshman? What?
Benson Lawson [01:02:24] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:02:25] Hey, we both, we both went to byu. How dare you. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Benson Lawson [01:02:29] I was told like going into it, I expected to be a great time. I was told by lots of people that it's really fun, you're going to have a great time. So I went in super optimistic. And when I arrived, like, I'm a pretty introverted person for reference. And I've got something called People say I have something called rbf. Be aware of that term. Resting bitch face.
John Dehlin [01:02:56] Yes.
Benson Lawson [01:02:56] Yeah. I'm someone if you see me like sitting At a cafeteria table. I've got a straight face since. Something I've noticed is people won't usually come up and talk to me unless, you know, I start the conversation. And I'm super great. I'm not super great at starting conversations all the time. So. Making friends was really hard for me at byu just because I'm pretty introverted.
John Dehlin [01:03:18] Also, the dorms at BYU are set up to give you a really good social experience. And if you're a freshman, just in the apartments, you're kind of. It's easy to probably feel alone and isolated.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:30] Yeah, it's a big school.
Benson Lawson [01:03:32] 30,000.
John Dehlin [01:03:32] 30,000 people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Did you like your classes?
Benson Lawson [01:03:38] Yeah, yeah. My apartment complex, it was the Bountiful Courts apartment. It's about a few blocks south, south of campus. I had five roommates, six people in a pretty cramped area. I had three people in one room. I was on a bottom bunk.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:56] Yeah, that's cozy.
Benson Lawson [01:03:57] It was just random people. But that worked out my schedule, my daily schedule. BYU was. I'd walk to work early in the morning. I got a job doing custodial. It was 4:30 to 8:30am I got that one because minimum wage kind of sucked here at the time. And that was the highest paying job I could find with a job with experience. I had just cleaning.
Benson Lawson [01:04:22] Got 14 bucks an hour for that, which still wasn't great, but I go to work after work. I do classes and then I'd work out at some point. I donated plasma a lot for passive income at Griffel's. Plasma.
Benson Lawson [01:04:38] Yeah. And something great about BYU is you don't. Your students aren't drinking, they're not getting tattoos, they're not doing drugs. So their plasma is super clean. So lots of BYU students donate plasma. So I think during my time being there, I donated 10 liters. I made a bunch of money doing it.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:57] Oh, interesting.
Benson Lawson [01:04:58] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:59] Did you feel like having the backup plan being able to go to byu? Did that buffer you? Spoke for a minute about feeling rejected.
Benson Lawson [01:05:09] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:05:11] Anytime we're talking about Mormonism, we have to consider the, you know, the social pressure aspect. Do you feel like going to BYU buffered the reaction or disappointment from those around you? Were they like, oh, oh, but it's okay because he's going to byu, or did you still feel a sense of letting people down? Being judged is not good from other people, like your ward or. We just speak to that for a minute?
Benson Lawson [01:05:39] Yeah. So BYU was my backup plan and I put it in place to be a backup plan. And it was A good thing that it worked out for me. But had it not worked out, probably would have just gone to like a local community college in central Oregon area. But BYU was my backup plan. And people in the ward, I think at this time they didn't judge me too much for it because they knew I was going to eventually serve a mission. I had never given like official talks about serving my mission.
Margi Dehlin [01:06:06] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:06:07] Yet. So, okay. Like people knew I was going to serve one, they just didn't know whether it was going to be before or after my freshman year of college.
Margi Dehlin [01:06:14] Yep.
Benson Lawson [01:06:15] Like the only people who knew that was rejected was my close family. So my close friends and then my bishop.
Margi Dehlin [01:06:20] Got it.
Benson Lawson [01:06:21] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:06:21] Okay, thanks.
John Dehlin [01:06:24] So anything other? That was eventful. Did you do two semesters at BYU and.
Benson Lawson [01:06:30] Yeah, so I went. Only went two semesters. It was like barely a year being there. And this was definitely one of the lowest times of my life. This was like after Olivia broke up with me and that took a pretty hard toll on who I was. And then like I was doing great with Olivia and then break up and then byu. This low just kind of stayed there.
Benson Lawson [01:06:55] It was pretty bad waking up early every morning. I had to wake up at 3:30 because I'd have to walk to work every morning. So I wasn't getting enough sleep usually. Yeah, classes weren't that bad. Honestly, they're freshman year stuff. And yeah, I don't know, I was a smart enough guy. But classes weren't horrible. It was just I got really homesick a lot. I have dogs. I miss my dogs a lot. Seeing a dog at BYU was always a highlight because I go be able to pet it. But I really miss my dogs, miss my family, missed. I had a really good group of friends in Redmond and we all separated, went our different ways for that time. So I really missed them.
Margi Dehlin [01:07:36] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:07:37] And at byu I felt like my only purpose there and was just kind of getting my freshman year done, waiting for my mission. And I planned to reapply for the mission that following year. Like it was early winter, this was 2024, so it's last year. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:07:59] I had to make sure I was in a good mental state though. I had to be mentally healthy so I could be accepted on the mission and I never was. So this is the point where I just like masked my mental health. I masked all the problems I was having and the BYU culture didn't fit with me. The pure, the pure Mormon culture didn't resonate with me whatsoever.
Benson Lawson [01:08:28] So I was masking all the problems. I was Having all the sadness I felt, the mourning I had. And I did all that just so I could get accepted on my mission. Because if I don't get accepted, then people are going to start asking questions. Then people are going to start wondering, is he really a good Mormon? What's going on in his life? They're going to think other things besides depression. They're going to think things like breaking the law of chastity and infidelity, Stuff like that.
John Dehlin [01:08:56] Yeah, yeah. So you're masking your depression and anxiety but wanting to reapply.
Benson Lawson [01:09:05] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:09:06] But also lonely, homesick and wanting to get home.
Benson Lawson [01:09:10] Huh.
John Dehlin [01:09:10] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:09:11] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:09:12] Anything else at Provo?
Benson Lawson [01:09:13] Yeah. While there I was still doing my journaling and I brought quotes from my journal just to.
John Dehlin [01:09:19] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:09:20] Kind of give an inside view to.
John Dehlin [01:09:21] Great, go ahead.
Benson Lawson [01:09:22] What my life looks like. Like I said earlier, these quotes aren't super good. The writing isn't good. It's just kind of like a routine day to day life. Short sentences. Don't expect any literature here.
John Dehlin [01:09:36] We like real good.
Benson Lawson [01:09:38] This isn't real. Oh, or like these journaling quotes aren't the most real. Some of them are. But most of them, like I said, were what I want. My.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:48] That's right. So there's a self consciousness to it and kind of filter that you're giving the part of yourself that you expect to be read later, which is very different.
John Dehlin [01:09:59] It's a Posterity journal.
Benson Lawson [01:10:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this journal went through or the quotes I brought go through like right after graduation to like sometime around last year when I was at my current university. But I'm gonna do some of the ones from like graduation to around BYU time.
Margi Dehlin [01:10:20] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:10:22] So this is June 28th of 2023. This is when I don't know what I'm doing with my life really. I don't have my mission call yet. And this is like a low of my life. I'm losing sleep. My stress is increasing, My sadness is growing. Work pains me. I'm just waiting until I leave. Then what? I need help. I really need help. I don't know what to do. Yeah. And like looking back, I can't believe I was writing this stuff down without seeing that there's something wrong with me.
Margi Dehlin [01:10:53] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:10:54] And then July 15th of 2023, this is when I was endowed. This is a whole nother, you know, aspect of my Mormon journey. But this is what I saw when I was endowed into the church today. I drove to Portland with my mom and received my endowment. It was a new but very spiritual experience. And I'm excited and anxious for what the future holds. I hope I find happiness and fulfillment. Yeah. I was endowed in the Portland Oregon temple.
Benson Lawson [01:11:21] So going there for the first time, it was super weird. It was the first time I saw all the cultish things. And even then, despite thinking how weird it was, I still masked it in this journal. Mm. Yeah. Next up is August of August 21, 2023. I had moved into Provo by now in my apartment, and I think it's my first night actually. So I moved into my apartment this morning and I'm not happy. I'm not sad. It's just that I'm not happy. I hope I'll meet people who will make me happy. I miss home already.
Benson Lawson [01:11:57] Next up, a month into school, September 18th of 2023. I've been a little homesick the past couple of days. I know it'll be okay, but it's hard being myself here. I hope I can find my people. Something I was told a lot going into college from like everyone is that you'll find your people, you'll find your group. And at byu, I never found that.
Benson Lawson [01:12:18] Yeah. Yeah. Next up, a month later, I took like a quote from each month at BYU. The next step is October 17th of 2023. Today was monotonous. I'm unhappy here. I want to find my purpose and I want to feel good about myself again. Hopefully things get better.
Benson Lawson [01:12:39] Yeah, they're all pretty short entries. Like if I look back at my journal, I have like 20 entries per page sometimes. And it's just my day to day life was so plain. Like I said in that last one, it was just monotonous. Day by day, the bad just kept getting worse. And that's what my life was for like six, nine months.
Benson Lawson [01:13:02] Yeah. Next up is November 6, 2023. Today was a normal Monday. I'm at an all time mental low, but it's not really affecting me. I'm just numb. Next up is Christmas of 2023. I went home for Christmas. I only went home once during my time at byu and it was just for Christmas break.
Benson Lawson [01:13:25] And that quote is, today was Christmas, but it didn't really feel like it. I don't feel like my life is amounting to much. I hope I can find my purpose soon. I hope I can be happy. Christmas was good. Christmas was good though. Good times with family that I don't want to end.
Benson Lawson [01:13:43] Yeah, the whole time I went home from that break, I had a great time seeing all my family, seeing my friends. But this, the whole time, this dread of having to go back to Utah, having to fly back alone, take the train from. I took the train from Salt Lake to Provo, and it was just. That day of travel was just a journey of dread, having to go back to Provo.
John Dehlin [01:14:06] Can I pause you for a second?
Benson Lawson [01:14:07] Yeah. Go crazy.
Journal Entries Reveal Growing Spiritual Crisis
John Dehlin [01:14:08] Something that I really love about what you're doing, like, in 2025, for the past five years in the United States, there's been a mental health epidemic.
Benson Lawson [01:14:21] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:14:21] With teens, young men and young adults in and out of the church. And, like, I don't think anybody really understands it, and they don't know what to do with it. What you're doing is you're kind of slowing down and giving us a real insider view on an example of the type of anxiety and depression that's like a plague right now in society, in US Society. And that's like, you know, I think that's really vulnerable of you. And it's also really instructive for those of us who want to try and understand it better, who may have young adult or teenage kids.
Benson Lawson [01:15:03] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:15:03] This is really powerful. So thank you.
Benson Lawson [01:15:05] Aside from, like, conversations with my girlfriend, my current girlfriend, hopefully my wife someday.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:12] Whoa.
John Dehlin [01:15:13] She's here. I'm looking at it. She kind of nodded her head a little bit. She kind of went, you know, like that for whatever.
Benson Lawson [01:15:22] Aside from conversations with her.
John Dehlin [01:15:23] No, she's gave a double thumbs up, actually.
Benson Lawson [01:15:25] That's good. Yeah. Aside from conversations with her, I've never been this vulnerable about my mental health. It's not something I really talk to my parents about.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:33] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:15:33] Talk to my friends about. Although, like, all my close friends and I are super great friends. We never really get this deep.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:39] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:15:40] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:40] Thank you.
John Dehlin [01:15:41] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:41] Thank you for being willing.
Benson Lawson [01:15:42] I'm happy I'm able to talk about this.
John Dehlin [01:15:44] Thank you.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:44] And also, like, it's clear to me in your entries, which are concise. Like, what you're sharing is so concise and, like, very well expressed in few words. I feel is, like, I have. You get that sense. Sense of how disconnected you feel from the experience that you're having. Like, I just feel it in your writing that there's this space. You're. You're saying things like, I'm numb.
Benson Lawson [01:16:13] I'm.
Margi Dehlin [01:16:14] And it just. You just feel the actual distance and insularity, like, being alone in it. And the. The Christmas one, too. And I have a question around this. It's like you're in a sentence. Like, you're living a sentence with going to byu. Like, there is no choice in other Words. It's not like you're actually like, well, this isn't really working for me. I wonder if there would be a better fit for me than. And did it feel that way? Did it feel like you were on this road? Can't veer, gotta live through it. A sentence. Back to BYU I go, you know, did it feel that way?
Benson Lawson [01:16:54] Yeah, for sure. Freshman year, BYU is supposed to be like a fun time. I was told about how fun it was supposed to be, but with my early morning work, with how little sleep I was getting, with how introverted I was, with how depressed I was at the time, those experiences didn't reach me.
Benson Lawson [01:17:13] I felt like I wasn't living what I was. Or I felt like I wasn't living the Mormon life I was supposed to be living. And there's just like a sense of guilt there. Like, I'm supposed to be happy here. I'm supposed to be having a good time.
Benson Lawson [01:17:26] And so this is like the self guilt. Like, am I doing something wrong? Is this my fault? I'm doing all the right life choices, but that's right. Life isn't working out for me. Like, the Mormon Church is supposed to bring me happiness. I'm supposed to find joy through reading the scriptures, doing all these things.
Benson Lawson [01:17:44] I'm in a horrible mental state. It's not working. What's going on? There's just so many questions, so much doubt. Not about the church yet, but about my life, about what I'm doing with my life, about the decisions I'm making outside of the church.
Margi Dehlin [01:18:01] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:18:02] It's interesting also, the word purpose keeps coming up in your journal entries. Yes. And it's interesting that that's one of the. I list, like, eight reasons why people are religious. And I. I have them. I just always rattle them off. And meaning and purpose is always, you know, two of the eight. And it's interesting that you were raised les Faithful, wanting to serve a mission, believed in the plan of salvation, yet in your mind, you didn't feel like you had a real sense of purpose. That is interesting to me that the church wasn't giving you what I assumed the LDS Church gives. That's like one of its benefits, is that it gives you purpose, but you weren't feeling it.
Benson Lawson [01:18:45] Yeah. Throughout high school, like, I still felt that kind of. That purpose kind of in the church, but most of my purpose was being a student, learning, studying, trying to get that valedictory status. That was a big goal I had.
John Dehlin [01:18:57] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:18:57] That was my purpose. Yeah. And that came. That came and passed.
John Dehlin [01:19:01] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:19:02] And Then, like, I think the only thing I was living on at BYU was, like, the purpose of being a student.
John Dehlin [01:19:08] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:19:08] And I was trying to have the purpose of being a mission, getting ready to be a missionary, being a Mormon.
John Dehlin [01:19:14] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:19:14] Like, it may have been purpose, but I wasn't happy about it. It didn't resonate with me. It wasn't what I truly wanted inside, but it's the purpose I gave myself so I could fit in the Mormon mold.
Margi Dehlin [01:19:23] Yeah, that totally makes sense. And it seems to me, too, with your goal of valedictorian, it seems like you have goals and then you work to the goals. It's like you have a sense of control, you know, it's like a game. You learn the rules and you play the game and succeed. Right. Like that. It seems like in other areas of your life, you were able to kind of figure it out and excel, but with the mission thing you're doing, you're. You're doing everything you're trying to, like, and it's. It's out of your control. It's actually right.
Benson Lawson [01:19:57] Yeah. I told myself through the whole time, like, oh, it's in God's hands. Things are going to work out. It was not in God's hand. It was. It was not in God's hands. It was in the. The mission department's hands, the bureaucracy.
Margi Dehlin [01:20:08] That's right.
Benson Lawson [01:20:09] It was in the hands of just imperfect men, imperfect priesthood leaders. God had no play in this at all.
Margi Dehlin [01:20:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:20:18] I'm curious to hear other entries. Do you have others you want to read?
Benson Lawson [01:20:21] So Christmas is the last one. Next up is January 16th of 2024. As I walk around campus, I can't help but feel meaningless. I want my sense of purpose again. There's that purpose again. Yeah. But Next up is February 25th of 2024. I'm really questioning the church. I don't believe many of the things they're putting forth. I believe in God, though, so I'll keep that close to me.
John Dehlin [01:20:47] Okay. Now I want to hear. What are you. What happened in February?
Margi Dehlin [01:20:51] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:20:52] This is last year. This was in your ibyu. Why is your festival. You should be in your religion class. Missionary prep or Book of Mormon, like, gaining a stronger testimony. What happened?
Benson Lawson [01:21:03] Oh, yeah, I was okay. I had mission prep my first semester.
John Dehlin [01:21:06] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:21:07] And honestly, it felt like a. Like a joke half the time being there. Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:21:11] Why?
Benson Lawson [01:21:14] I don't want to say too much about it or too much bad about it.
John Dehlin [01:21:16] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [01:21:17] But not a good fit.
Benson Lawson [01:21:19] Yeah, it was not a good fit for me. I felt like it was prep for the mtc and BYU has something called the honor code where they'll give you tests and stuff and they just trust you not to cheat on the tests. We got like these weekly quizzes on the Preach My Gospel, the Mormon handbook. That thing's always changing. I had to study for other things, so I cheated on those tests. No one knew. And that was like the first time I ever cheated in my life. But I cheated because I knew in my heart, like, this stuff doesn't really matter. Yeah, I don't really need to learn these things because it's going to change. They're going to, like, do away with it eventually.
Margi Dehlin [01:21:56] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:21:57] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:21:57] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:21:58] Yeah. And then. Sorry. My professor at one point talked about cheating in that class. He had a missionary who went on his mission and then he came back later, came to the professor's like, hey, I cheated on all these tests. And he got his grade taken down from like an A to a C because he was cheating. And I feel like there's that sense of honest, having to be honest all the time, and then that guilt. I bet this guy had an A looming sense of guilt all throughout his mission. And then coming back, he repented and painted his permanent report card. But yeah.
Shelf Items: Doubts About Church History and Doctrine
John Dehlin [01:22:34] So what was causing you to doubt your testimony in February of last year?
Benson Lawson [01:22:38] Yeah, around this time. This is when on social media a bunch of ex Mormon stuff started showing up. Prior to this, on social media, I was really good at just like swiping away like, oh, this is stuff I'm not supposed to look at. Don't look at it. At this point, honestly, with how sad I was, how bad things were, I didn't really care anymore and I just kind of washed it.
John Dehlin [01:23:01] Can I just say it's ironic because in the Wall Street Journal this week, there's an article. Oh, yeah, you're in it.
Benson Lawson [01:23:07] I'm in.
Margi Dehlin [01:23:10] I told him yesterday.
John Dehlin [01:23:11] I'm sorry. Yeah, so. So just for those who are watching, the Wall Street Journal just came out with an article about how TikTok is causing Mormons to leave the church in droves. And it's got. I'm quoted, but it's got Alyssa Grenfell dressed up in her temple clothing and it quotes a lot of Mormon ex Mormon influencers. And it talks about the church having a hemorrhaging of membership because of short form social media content. So it was a tick tock, basically. Your Instagram. Did you remember whose stuff you found?
Benson Lawson [01:23:46] So Alyssa Grandfeld is like the main one. Stuff popped up a lot. Unfortunately, you Guys didn't show up until, like, months later.
John Dehlin [01:23:52] What do you mean? Unfortunately?
Benson Lawson [01:23:53] Unfortunately. I wish I saw it sooner, but.
John Dehlin [01:23:55] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:23:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:23:56] Why? Why do you say that?
Benson Lawson [01:23:57] Well, like, you guys, I think, speak very literally, very honestly, and seeing as you're like, older adults. Not super old. No, no. But, like, it's easier to respect people who have, you know, a little bit more age, people who have had more experiences. Like, I think Alyssa Grandfeld, she's a bit younger. Was she, like, 30? Something? Like, seeing her stuff, I just thought she was another person just right out of byu who is bashing BYU for no reason.
John Dehlin [01:24:25] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:24:25] Like, at the beginning of seeing these things, I did kind of doubt them, but.
John Dehlin [01:24:28] Oh, I see.
Benson Lawson [01:24:29] I had lots of other faith crises. Things go on.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:32] I see. Okay, that makes sense.
John Dehlin [01:24:34] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:24:35] Moment.
John Dehlin [01:24:36] So you found some social media, started not swiping away, Basically. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:24:43] All right. Yeah. I'm going to talk about the building of my shelf real quick.
John Dehlin [01:24:48] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:24:49] And some of the things that added to it. So the endowment ceremony, like I mentioned earlier, was definitely a big thing. I went through the endowment only three times, counting my first one. I went to the Portland Temple, the Provost City Center Temple, and then the Provo Temple before it got. It's getting refurnished right now, I think. So before that and going through. Every time they play the video at the beginning is when. Every time they play the video, I fell asleep.
Benson Lawson [01:25:21] Like, it's pretty boring, and I didn't like that aspect of it. But being in the celestial room doesn't feel like. I don't feel joy in there. I don't feel peace. The celestial room is supposed to be like a symbolic earthly version of heaven, yet I didn't want that to be my heaven. I didn't want the celestial room to be my eternity. It felt so plain in there, so white. I felt. I didn't feel. I, like, tried to feel peace, but it was just worry almost all the time. Just this dread of, is this what my eternity looks like? And it was. That's why I didn't like the endowment ceremony. But, yeah, makes sense.
John Dehlin [01:26:07] Very common. Very few Mormons that I talked to really enjoy the temple ceremony. So that's good to hear in that one. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:16] But I also like your thoughts also on the sleep, being in the celestial room afterwards. And it's. It's supposed to feel like heaven. And for you, you're having this opposite experience of, like, I really hope not. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:26:32] And another thing that happened while at byu, and there's this group of friends I had who got Together pretty often from Redmond. We got together, like, once every two months or something. But an adult I respected in that group, I overheard her having a conversation once, and she. What she said was that she felt so sorry about those people at the trial of homosexuality. And that was another thing that was pretty gut wrenching for me. I had lots of homosexual friends in high school. I'm very. I try to be loving to everyone. I think the biggest thing with the church that still sticks with me is love for all. And just hearing them have that sense of pride that I'm not gay, I don't have this trial, and then saying it isn't is a trial for those who have it. That did not sit in my stomach well at all.
Margi Dehlin [01:27:19] Yeah. Yep.
Benson Lawson [01:27:21] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:27:22] Also very common. The LGBT stuff is decimated. Many a testimony. Yeah, yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:27:28] And you're recognizing. You're. You're actually connecting with yourself and recognizing your own feelings where there's, like, discord with what's being, which is. Yeah. Important.
Benson Lawson [01:27:42] And then additionally, at this point is when I started hearing about on social media, the church's finances out there. They have multiple hundreds of billions of dollars. And I'm thinking at that point, like, they don't want me to go on a mission because I'm gonna. I'm going to be a financial burden to them. When you have all that money to spare, I have to pay you, like, what, 40 bucks a month for my. What I was making in college. Do you really need that?
John Dehlin [01:28:11] You're tithing?
Benson Lawson [01:28:12] Yeah. Tithing. That's what it was.
John Dehlin [01:28:14] Yeah, yeah. So you think they could get you the best mental health care possible? You could serve your mission and just get good support? Yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:28:23] Like they have enough money to change the world pretty much.
John Dehlin [01:28:26] But yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:28:26] They just let it sit in stocks and in property.
John Dehlin [01:28:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Benson Lawson [01:28:34] yeah. And then in my Book of Mormon class, my professor was Robbie Taggart. He's a phenomenal professor. If anyone's going to byu, I highly recommend him. Super great guy. We had one day. We were talking about the history of African Americans at the church with the. The Skin of Darkness Scripture. What's the exact. Do you know the exact.
John Dehlin [01:28:55] Which one or the first one?
Benson Lawson [01:28:57] Second Nephi.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:57] That's a dark life.
John Dehlin [01:28:58] Okay, the second. Sorry, the second Nephi. One.
Benson Lawson [01:29:00] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:29:02] Yeah, I forget the actual chapter verse, but it's when the Lamanites get cursed with dark skin.
Benson Lawson [01:29:08] Yeah, he was a bit of more a. More one of the liberal teachers, I think. And we had a whole day where we just talked about that scripture. Talked about what it meant to us, talked about how we interpret it. And basically what everyone thought in that class was that the skin of darkness is just symbolic for countenance. Yes.
John Dehlin [01:29:27] Instead of actual pigment.
Benson Lawson [01:29:28] Yeah. Whereas back in the day it was actual pigment. Is that right?
John Dehlin [01:29:31] A thousand percent.
Benson Lawson [01:29:32] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:29:33] Yeah. It still is. It's not ambiguous.
Benson Lawson [01:29:35] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:29:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:29:38] And another thing I saw on social media was the skin of darkness scripture, but it being interpreted as the actual pigment. Any of the church's history with the African Americans at this point, the priesthood ban, all of the mistreating with African Americans in the past. And that's another one of the things that did not fit well with me. Yeah, yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:30:00] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [01:30:02] To the BYU's credit, some professors are being open and honest about the church's history. You know, so I, I, to some degree, I'm, I think that's good. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:30:14] Yeah. When we got to. I believe it's in Helen, where the Nephites at this point are the quote unquote, bad guys, but. Or the sinners. This is when they're putting their faith on like the vain things of the world, on money. I made the connection there that these Nephites putting their, putting everything they have on money, liking money more than God and just that's why they were cursed and all that. Or that's why they were the quote unquote, bad guys. But they're just like the church. They're the same way the church is now today. The church values money way more than its members at times. And it's just I made that connection and that was another one of the things that I added to my shelf.
Margi Dehlin [01:30:57] Yeah, I bet.
John Dehlin [01:30:59] Yeah. Sometimes people start thinking the great and spacious building mentioned in the Book of Mormon, that's, that's filled with people with costly apparel. That sounds a lot like the church to some people.
Benson Lawson [01:31:10] Yeah, it's like, like that's what temples are sometimes in my head because they spend like, what, a million dollars on a chandelier? Put so much money in these temples. But I feel like. Was it, Is it in India? One of the Indiana Jones movies? The. At the end there's like all the Holy Grail or the Holy Grails or whatever. Right.
John Dehlin [01:31:31] Arc of the Covenant or oh, the Holy Grail.
Benson Lawson [01:31:33] And then like, you drink the one that Jesus would have picked or something, and the guy drinks the gold when he dies. And then, then I forget. It's been a while since I've seen the movie. But the one Jesus picked was like a wooden one. That's the one The Holy Grail was like a very old, like, splatter or very old, like, dilapidated wooden one. That's not what temples are today. Temples are luxurious, expensive. So much money goes into them. It's just completely contradicts what most people believe. Jesus to have Jesus to believe in. Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:32:10] Makes sense. Yeah. So some say the Book of Mormon condemns the modern church.
Benson Lawson [01:32:16] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:32:17] Right. So your shelf is heavy. It's getting heavier.
Benson Lawson [01:32:20] Yeah, yeah. Next up, I went to my church while I byu, my ward met in the Crabtree Building, which is one of the engineering buildings. One day we had our bishop brought someone in to give, like, a little lecture about repentance. This guy had been to prison. He committed sexual abuse, like, four acts of it, was found guilty, went to prison. And this was sexual abuse on a male minor. And he came in and told us about repentance. And he had, like, been fresh out of prison. There's like a court case. You can find all the details on it showing his name. Okay. Or is that if it's.
John Dehlin [01:33:05] If you've.
Benson Lawson [01:33:05] Yeah, it's public information. Yeah. There's a Deseret news coverage of it.
John Dehlin [01:33:09] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:33:10] His name is Michael Ram Jenkins, but he came in, talked about his life. He had, like, troubles with homosexuality a lot as a kid. It had pro. It came into his marriage. But he came in, talked about, like, repentance and how he found, like, he's in a good place now, but he's committed, like, literal crimes. And he's been to prison for some of the things he's done, some of the acts of sexual abuse he's done.
Benson Lawson [01:33:36] But after being out, he came, he talked to us about repentance. And going into this discussion, we knew that it'd be a bit more heavy topic, but we didn't know what happened until looking up his name afterwards. I just felt like this experience was another level of gaslighting. Like, here we have someone. Here we have someone who, like, repented. And it's all good now. But, like, if you're trans, that's not good. Like, they'll let people who have repented, who are like registered sex offenders, they can, like, go on youth trips and stuff. But if you have a trans person, they can't go on youth trips. And that's a connection I made at that time. And that just another thing, gut wrenching, did not sit well in my stomach.
Margi Dehlin [01:34:24] So to be clear, he comes in as a speaker.
Benson Lawson [01:34:27] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:34:28] And is he talking about his experience of growing up gay, or is he talking about growing up gay? And the Sexual abuse or are you saying he didn't even talk about the sexual abuse and you found that out later?
Benson Lawson [01:34:42] He didn't talk about the sexual abuse exactly. He talked about how he had, like, an internal homosexual struggle, but he masked it throughout the whole. His whole life. And he, like, it was something that was a problem in his marriage. And then he talked about. He did, like, something. That's what he told us. He went to prison. And then the whole point of the lesson was to show us repentance afterwards. Like, he repented of it all.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:06] He was forgiven.
Benson Lawson [01:35:07] It's all good now. Forgiven. I'm a good person now. That's what he was trying to show us.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:11] I. I get it.
Benson Lawson [01:35:12] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:12] Oh, wow.
John Dehlin [01:35:13] Part of the problem with that is it perpetuates the false stereotype that gay people abuse abuse at higher rates. And I don't think that's what the evidence shows.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:22] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:35:23] And also, as I understand it, people that have abused children oftentimes repeat. So as far as you know, he's better now, but it's. It's hard to know. So that's just a difficult all the way around. Repentance is a tricky thing when it comes to child abusers. But also, you are spot on that the church has 50, 100 years of protecting abusers at the expense of victims. You know, and that's just a fact. And more importantly to your point, treating child abusers way better than they treat gay or lesbian or trans members. That's just a fact. You. You get excommunicated for being legally same sex married. You don't necessarily get excommunicated for being a pedophile in the Mormon church.
Margi Dehlin [01:36:22] Yep.
John Dehlin [01:36:23] It's not mandatory. It's discretionary.
Benson Lawson [01:36:26] Yeah. And I saw this and like, that didn't fit with. That didn't fit with my personal beliefs.
John Dehlin [01:36:32] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:36:32] Like, sure, it bit with my Mormon beliefs and what I wanted to believe or what I had to believe. But as far as who I was, the beliefs I had, the person I wanted to be, it did not fit at all.
John Dehlin [01:36:43] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:36:43] And that's. Hence the faith crisis there.
Margi Dehlin [01:36:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:36:47] Yeah. Makes sense.
Margi Dehlin [01:36:49] Yep.
Benson Lawson [01:36:51] So I'd say those were definitely the major points of my faith crisis and the major things that made me start doubting the church and in February.
John Dehlin [01:37:03] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:37:04] Yeah. So I'm gonna move on with my journal.
John Dehlin [01:37:07] Yeah. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:37:07] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:37:08] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:37:08] So after those points, can I say it's.
John Dehlin [01:37:11] It's hard at byu.
Benson Lawson [01:37:13] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:13] To be doubting your faith like that and to know a mission's pending.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:18] When your faith is falling away, that's not easy.
Benson Lawson [01:37:21] Like, I had all these doubts, but I was still trying to be the best Mormon I could. I knew all these things, but I just still tried to justify that. Hey, it'll all work out in the end. It's going to be all right.
John Dehlin [01:37:32] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:37:33] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:33] But then you have this intense pressure, though, too, of like, I've got to be okay. I've got to be okay because I have to pass this mission interview. I failed last time, the test or whatever. Is that right?
Benson Lawson [01:37:44] And then, like, at this point, I'm worrying a little bit more on the mission about the mission, because I have all these doubts. I, like, know all these things. The church is doing things wrong or doing something's wrong, but yet I have to preach the church to others.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:56] That's right.
Benson Lawson [01:37:56] To bring others under these beliefs that I don't. Under these beliefs that I don't completely believe in. So, yeah. Yeah. It was just a rough decision. Yeah. To lock in on the mission. Yeah. So next up is March. March 30th of 2024. I hate my life. There's nothing for me here in Utah. I have no purpose. I'm losing my faith in God. I need someone's help. I pray every night, but nothing works. I hate myself.
Receiving and Ultimately Declining the Mission Call
John Dehlin [01:38:27] Dang.
Benson Lawson [01:38:29] Yeah. April 2, 2024. I got my mission call today. After over a year of having to deal with crap from the mission department, I finally received my call. I opened it in the sacred grove in the jsb, the Joseph Smith building. And I did an Instagram live in the evening to showcase where I was going. I'm serving in the Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Mission. It could have been more exciting, but I'll take it. I know I'll find something for me there. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:38:59] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:39:00] My reaction to that was like, that's not where I wanted to go at all. Yet I kind of forced myself into accepting it, forced myself into telling myself things are going to be okay. But a very true but unspoken thing of the church is that stateside missions are less respectable than foreign missions.
Benson Lawson [01:39:21] And I felt like with my academic history, with my achievements, that I'd be worthy to go foreign, to have, like, a really cool experience somewhere outside the US but getting called to Oklahoma, the Bible Belt, the middle of the US that wasn't super exciting for me. It felt like a spit in the face, frankly, with all this work I was doing to get on the mission, just to be called somewhere where I didn't really want to go. Like, no offense to anyone in Oklahoma, but it Wasn't fulfilling for me as a place to spend two years of my life.
Benson Lawson [01:39:53] And I feel like Oklahoma, that calling wasn't a calling from God when I got it. One, the mental health, all of that stateside, seems like it'd be less of a culture shock, so I'm sure that was some of the reason for sending me there then. Secondly, a bit of a digression here. I had, when I was younger, a shellfish allergy. I got tested positive for shellfish. Right. And then one time I had shrimp, no reaction. Had crabs, no reaction. But I had never had mollusks. So I just assumed I was allergic to mollusks. On my application, I just put down shellfish.
Benson Lawson [01:40:36] So I think they called me to Oklahoma to keep me away from, like, oceans or where you'd find seafood. That has felt like a very logical decision and not a spiritual decision.
John Dehlin [01:40:46] No, it's absolutely true that the church, historically, if you endorse mental health conditions, you're assigned stateside.
Benson Lawson [01:40:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:40:56] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:40:56] And for reference, I'm not allergic to moles. I tried an oyster and I didn't have a reaction, so I could have been fine anywhere.
Margi Dehlin [01:41:04] Something that is interesting, I think in the church, too, is when you, like, culturally, when you get a mission call, to have preferences at all is kind of looked down upon. Right. It's like you're a true servant. If you're just thrilled no matter where you're sent, which then it. It creates again, that kind of split self of what you show people, which is like, I'm gonna. I'm sure I'm gonna learn and be blessed by the people in whatever area in Idaho, in I'm called to Utah, or that showing preferences or like, any type of. Like, this would be actually fun for me is, like, frowned upon. It's just selfless. You have no. The. The less need you have, the less preferences you have. You. It's like the. The more righteous you are, which is just interesting.
Benson Lawson [01:42:01] Yeah. Like, you're not serving a mission for yourself. You're serving a mission for God. Your whole testimony isn't completely, like, based on what you want. It's based on what the church wants or what God wants. And I wasn't going on my mission to bless myself. Like, the reason I justified going on my mission was blessing the people that I'd serve. I was told by, like, one of my bishops that going on my mission would also bless my family. So I went to bless my family, but.
Margi Dehlin [01:42:31] Right. Yeah, that's right.
John Dehlin [01:42:34] Another. Just a couple things. Like, I. I know the senior missionaries are allowed to specify where they want to go because I have close family members who applied. And yeah, they list like the top nine places they want to go and they got one of their top picks. So I mean it's a totally a bureaucratic, arbitrary decision or cultural artifact to say that senior missionaries get to influence where they get called. But there's the stigma. Oh, but, but 18 to 20 year old missionaries, it's evil to have a preference to go foreign versus domestic. Yeah, but I mean that's legitimate.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:12] Like two years of your life.
John Dehlin [01:43:14] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:14] A lot of people pay for. They're paying for it.
John Dehlin [01:43:17] Yeah. Why can't you say, I want to serve, I want to learn a language while I'm there, I want to do a different culture. Or I just, I don't want to go to Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Like that's. I guess in theory that's valid. Right. But, but in a high demand religion you're not allowed to be in touch with your own desires, let alone say, I'm less interested in a mission if it's a domestic one.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:40] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:43:41] But I, you know, my bro, I went to Guatemala, which I was, you know, was hard, but I loved it. My brother went to Sacramento, you know what I mean? And he said he loved it. But I'm sure I'm glad I didn't go to Sacramento, I can tell you that. You know.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:55] Anyway, I think preferences also really break down around the culture of. And pressure to go. Because if everyone could just sort of decline and feel okay, declining a location where you're like, wow, that does not sound like a great fit or nope, I'm not really excited. Then that, that's one thing. But I think when you don't actually, when culturally there's this pressure to accept and you're lucky. And the more selfless you are and obedient you are, the better. That's where it's. And you're paying for it. Then you put on the other things of like you're actually paying for it. It's two years of your life. Then it's like, yeah, that people should be able to have some preferences. I'm just noticing in your story, you're having these inner feelings of what you really feel and then you have kind of what you're sharing. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:44:46] And sorry, one last thing. Like the what, what we're taught is that the Lord chooses our mission calling. What's true is that there's this computer system.
Margi Dehlin [01:44:58] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:44:58] That has a bunch of, you know, where are there needs for missionaries who are, who's applying? How do we take into consideration, you know, all the different factors and then make a decision?
Margi Dehlin [01:45:10] Right.
John Dehlin [01:45:10] And they've even built this sort of facade of a system where an apostle will sit down and like, oversee the assignments of, you know, missionary candidates to missions. But let's just be clear. It's a computer that's picking, not God.
Margi Dehlin [01:45:27] Right.
John Dehlin [01:45:27] You know, and yes, maybe occasionally an apostle will go. I feel like Jimmy should go to Spain instead of, you know, Oklahoma. But there's no evidence that that's God.
Margi Dehlin [01:45:40] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:45:41] That could just be like what he had for lunch. You know what I mean? Yeah. So anyway, sorry, we're just trying to
Margi Dehlin [01:45:47] connect with, add some context as to the difficult feelings you're, you're feeling in this moment. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:45:53] Yeah, I appreciate all that.
John Dehlin [01:45:55] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:45:56] So next up after the mission call is at the end of that month. 4/25. 24. It was my last full day in Utah today. I still don't know what I'm doing with my life. I know what makes me happy, but how can I integrate it into my life? How can I work this out?
Benson Lawson [01:46:15] So I was super excited to leave byu. The last at the end of the semester, I was just dreading it. It was just kind of a plateau until I could finish up school. And then after that I was just waiting for my mission. My mission call was for July 15, so I had a bit of waiting to do. And I get back end of April. So that's like what, three months?
Benson Lawson [01:46:36] And this period was, I'd say, the point at which I decided not just remission, this is the point at which I decided to do things that didn't align with the church. And some of the things that went into that decision was like all the faith crises, things we talked about before.
Benson Lawson [01:46:55] I wasn't seeing a future in the church. I was still at an all time mental low. And with that, I knew going on the mission would just push me lower because I had things to cope with, my mental low. Like I just had TV shows to watch. I'd work out a lot. I worked out a lot because that's just what I use my free time for.
Benson Lawson [01:47:15] And I'd lose those things on the mission. I wouldn't have these things to interact with. I wouldn't have these pop culture things to interact with that made me happy. The things that distracted me from what was going on, I would lose all of my distractions because they don't align with what you can do on your mission. I feel like if I lost all those things. The mission would have just been horrible for me. I don't think I would have gone home early either because like I said earlier, I'm a very steadfast person. I don't give up. I don't quit. And. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:47:46] Is that what you were referring to in your journal writing when you said I know what makes me happy?
Benson Lawson [01:47:52] Yes. I know the things that make me happy. And I was worried about losing those things. Like, how can I integrate these things into my life? Because these things most like normal Mormons don't do all the time. They don't do them as often as I do them.
Margi Dehlin [01:48:05] Right.
John Dehlin [01:48:06] And for those who don't know, you know, missionaries can't watch tv, they can't go to the movies, they can't browse the Internet, and they certainly can't go work out at the gym. Like maybe they can go jog for 30 minutes once a day with their companion. But. But there's just so many normal, everyday things that Mormon missionaries can't do. So. And I think it's also worth mentioning, being a devout, faithful Mormon was not making you happy.
Benson Lawson [01:48:36] No, not at all.
John Dehlin [01:48:39] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:48:40] Like over this year, over that year, I went to the movies a lot. I watched a lot of TV shows. I did. I. And I think the reason I did that was because these stories that other people were making, these stories of other people's lives were distracting me from my own life, distracting me from how sad I was because I could rejoice in, like, these other stories and these others lives and to take that away from me and just focus on my life and focus on what I needed to do to be a good servant for God, just to bring people into a church I didn't believe in. I think that's a good enough reason not to serve your mission.
John Dehlin [01:49:16] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:49:16] Yeah. Next up is May 18th of 2024. Today I decided that I'm not going to suffer a mission. This was a long time coming, but today I must have the strength to truly say, I'm not. I'm not going to do it. Instead, I'm going to Eastern Oregon University in the fall. I'm optimistic and hopeful for what is to come.
Margi Dehlin [01:49:37] Wow. What did it feel like to kind of, you know, in that moment, stake. Stake a claim on your own life?
Benson Lawson [01:49:46] Yeah. So during this period between the end of my freshman year in college, in between when I was supposed to leave on my mission, all I had was the mission. That's the only thing I had waiting for me. I didn't have school to focus on anymore. I just had like a part time job and then waiting for the mission.
John Dehlin [01:50:03] What's the mission pressure or culture like BYU as a freshman?
Benson Lawson [01:50:07] Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, that's a really good question. So the question at BYU is not have you served a mission? Or where did you serve or not have. The question is, where did you serve your mission? And when I told people that, oh, I haven't served my mission yet, they're just like a little really? And a little taken aback and it
John Dehlin [01:50:26] means there's something wrong.
Benson Lawson [01:50:27] Yeah. So I had to tell them about my mental health issues. I told a lot of people, like, oh, I just had some mental health problems. So.
John Dehlin [01:50:34] Because they're thinking up you're into porn or you had sex, you know, which is. It's a violation of privacy and it's embarrassing.
Benson Lawson [01:50:41] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:50:41] So then you have to disclose your mental health issues, which is none of their GD business. But you don't want them thinking that you're into porn necessarily. Right. Yeah. Right.
Benson Lawson [01:50:52] So there's a very heavy mission culture at byu.
John Dehlin [01:50:54] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:50:54] Like you expect everyone you see to have at least served a mission, or every male you serve at least. See at least. And then again, lots of female submissions too. I think it's. Are females rising in numbers?
John Dehlin [01:51:04] Because.
Benson Lawson [01:51:05] Oh, that's what I feel like.
John Dehlin [01:51:06] There's more women than men now.
Benson Lawson [01:51:07] That's crazy. Yeah, that's what it felt like at byu because, I mean, most of the male friends I had were like, like older in their 20s than I just because they had already served their mission. Like I had as a freshman. I was 19. I had lots of 18, 19. I had lots of freshman friends who were like early 20s, 22, 23. And then like most of the kids my age were girls because they have to wait till they're 19 to serve the mission. Men can serve at 18. So, yeah, being a man who had not served his mission right out of high school was definitely a weird thing at byu.
John Dehlin [01:51:43] Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was. It may. Was that after you came home that you made that decision so you didn't have to go tell all your BYU friends that you weren't serving a mission?
Benson Lawson [01:51:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:51:56] Okay.
Benson Lawson [01:51:57] I think most of the ones I have, I don't keep in a lot of contact with them anymore. I have a few of them on Instagram, like social media, and they definitely seen that I didn't go. No one really reaches out to me though. But.
Margi Dehlin [01:52:08] But you are. You are back home.
Benson Lawson [01:52:10] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:52:10] So you would have your home ward. You Would have a time, at least elapse, where you're seeing the people. Yeah, right.
Benson Lawson [01:52:18] And they all think I'm going. My mission. When I got home from byu, I actually gave a talk where I talked about my mission. Where I got called. It wasn't like a going away talk. It was just more of where I am at in life talk. It's kind of a prelude to my mission talk.
Margi Dehlin [01:52:30] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:52:31] But I did give a talk about where I got called. How this past year BYU has been for me. So everyone in the ward still thinks I'm going. They know I'm called Oklahoma. Everyone knows that I'm still in the church. I'm still in it. Although at this point, I'm also having this huge faith crisis. Around this time, I also got my first tattoo.
Margi Dehlin [01:52:53] Oh, yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:52:54] That was a big thing. I got it right here in my
John Dehlin [01:52:56] chest because they were allowed by that point.
Benson Lawson [01:52:58] I mean, I was. I did it without my parents knowing. At this point, my dad was, like, completely out of the church. He was getting a ton of tattoos, and I didn't see that as like a role model way, but I knew I wanted something to, I don't know, state something that's important to me. I have a row of tattoos right here that are all Rubik's Cubes. I'm really into. It's called speed cubing, but I have, like, my favorite events on my torso area. But. Yeah. What's your fastest time for a normal three by three is 7.4 seconds. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:53:33] Wow.
John Dehlin [01:53:33] This is totally random, but Brooklyn's brother has, like, the world's record for creating the most multi dimensional Rubik's cube.
Benson Lawson [01:53:46] That's huge. I went to the World Championship in Seattle earlier this year, and that cube was there. And that guy was there, and I talked to him.
John Dehlin [01:53:54] Oh, yeah. Like, Preston Alden is his name.
Benson Lawson [01:53:56] That's brother 49 by 49.
Margi Dehlin [01:53:59] Is that right?
John Dehlin [01:53:59] She'll tell us in the chat.
Benson Lawson [01:54:01] That's crazy. I saw him a few months ago.
John Dehlin [01:54:03] He's from Utah. He went to Utah State and he studied mechanical.
Benson Lawson [01:54:06] I noticed he was warm. Mormon.
John Dehlin [01:54:07] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:54:07] There's something about Utah I don't know that I'd say I saw. Like, it was on the. They had the world record plaque there.
John Dehlin [01:54:14] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:54:14] And it said it was, like, done in Utah.
John Dehlin [01:54:16] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:54:16] So, yes, I assume they're Mormons.
John Dehlin [01:54:18] Yeah. That's Preston.
Benson Lawson [01:54:19] That's really cool.
John Dehlin [01:54:19] That's cool. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:21] Connection.
Benson Lawson [01:54:22] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:23] Okay, I'm gonna ask you again, like, so when you.
John Dehlin [01:54:26] Wait. But he said you said you solved a Rubik's Cube in 10 seconds.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:29] Seven.
John Dehlin [01:54:30] Seven. That's amazing. Okay. Sorry, Margi. I just didn't want to gloss over that, Preston.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:36] And we should.
John Dehlin [01:54:37] Seven seconds. Okay, good.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:39] We should not gloss over that, but okay. So back to your journal entry.
Benson Lawson [01:54:46] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:47] So in that moment that you have said, you've written it and you are now acknowledging it to yourself, I'm not going to go. And I have a different plan. I'm not also going back to byu. This is like a declaration of, oh, I'm going off plan now. So do you remember how. What that felt like?
Benson Lawson [01:55:09] Yeah. So prior to this date, I was still like very on the fence about going or not going so much to the point where I was researching other colleges I could go to for my following year because I knew I didn't want to go back to byu.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:23] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:55:24] So I was super into track and field at this time. I was trying to get on the BYU team and I was like, good, but not good enough to get on it. But so I typed in literally on Google track schools. Oregon and Eastern Oregon University came up. I had some coaches in high school who were from there, so I reached out to their coach and they said I could come on the team. And with that, I knew I had an option to go to Eastern Oregon University.
Benson Lawson [01:55:51] So that was my second plan to not going on a mission since I had that plan. I was telling my mom about the possibility, and then that's when she asked me, wait, so are you going on your mission anymore? And there's in that moment when she asked me where I kind of said, you know what? No, I'm not going anymore.
Benson Lawson [01:56:08] And this kind of shocked her. The tattoo shocked her. But they're both things I did. She saw me do them, but she saw that they made me happier and she was all right with them. At this point, she's like a single mother in the church.
Benson Lawson [01:56:24] Her ex husband is out of the church. She's seeing her two younger sons having a rough time in the church. So she's still in the church, but she's not in it for the doctrine. She's more in it for the community, in it for the people and for the connections. So this is the beginning of her own faith crisis.
John Dehlin [01:56:46] It is brutal to be a single, divorced, single mom in the Mormon Church.
Benson Lawson [01:56:51] Yeah, the church is not built for single. It's not built for people, for that matter. It's built for, like, perfect families, I feel like.
John Dehlin [01:56:58] And then outside of Utah, if you're trying to find a new Mormon husband to Marry in freaking Oregon.
Benson Lawson [01:57:04] They'll be like, she had, like, two options.
John Dehlin [01:57:06] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:57:07] None of which really fit her. What you needed.
John Dehlin [01:57:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Margi Dehlin [01:57:13] So did your. Did you. In this moment or in the weeks to come, what did this do for your joy factor, purpose and your anxiety?
John Dehlin [01:57:25] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:57:26] So the mission at this point was still this huge dread. But declaring that I wasn't going to go, my life opened to, like, infinite possibilities. I didn't have to go on the mission. I didn't have to be Mormon. I could do whatever I wanted with my life. I didn't have to get a Mormon wife. I can do whatever I want. I don't need a waste. It felt like a waste at that point. Waste two years of my life in Oklahoma.
John Dehlin [01:57:50] No offense to Oklahoma.
Benson Lawson [01:57:52] Yeah. But I just had so much opportunity open up to me, and it felt like just a whole new life. Pretty much a whole new world.
John Dehlin [01:58:02] To quote Disney.
Benson Lawson [01:58:04] Yeah. At this point, I'm still in the church, kind of. And after I declare that I'm not going on my mission to my mom, the next day, I call the mission department. I ring them up on the phone. I say, hi, this is Benson Lawson. I have a mission call for Oklahoma. And they're like, oh, yes, we. We have your file. And then I'm like, yes, I'd like to redact that. I'm not going on my mission anymore. And then the lady who called me or who was on the other line from, like, the nice classic morning voice went way, way stern. She was like, well, you need to talk to your stake president about that. And then it was off. Hang up.
John Dehlin [01:58:41] She hung up.
Benson Lawson [01:58:42] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:58:42] What?
Benson Lawson [01:58:43] It was insane.
John Dehlin [01:58:44] That is so rude. I would not expect that.
Benson Lawson [01:58:48] Yeah. It was just customer service.
Margi Dehlin [01:58:50] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:58:51] Yeah. So talk to my stake president. I did, but that's rare, probably, for
John Dehlin [01:58:56] them to receive a call like that.
Benson Lawson [01:58:57] Oh, yeah. Very rare.
John Dehlin [01:58:58] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [01:58:59] Yeah. So my stake president at the time, he's since been replaced with another one. But I'd say he definitely taught faith with fear more so than faith with love. Going into this conversation I had with him, I had respected him. I trusted him. We worked together a lot. He respected me.
Friends Leaving, a Stake President Interview, and Final Break
Benson Lawson [01:59:22] But after this conversation I had with him, my opinion about him completely changed. So we met one evening, and he's a very gregarious person. He talks a lot. He loves talking and hearing the sound of his own voice. Sometimes I feel like he just talks a lot. There are lots of times when I talked and talked about one of my worries, and he had this. He talked back with just a long, like 10 minute answer about here's the reason why. And, but rather in this meeting, rather than feeling loved and being taken in with love, like, oh, it's all right, you're not going on your mission.
Benson Lawson [02:00:02] It was this attack the whole time. It was like a two hour discussion of like, well, this is the end of your life. Pretty much, you're going down a dangerous and dark path. I've seen others go down this path and their life led to ruin. Something he said to me is that the life you're going down does not lead to happiness.
Benson Lawson [02:00:19] And I have a quote, a bunch of quotes. He said, yeah, there's that one. And then one of the most, being a black sheep does not make you special. And when I heard that one, like, I think Mormons are black sheep more so than the rest of the world. Because I felt like I was actually leaving the sheep, the flock of black sheep, and joining just the rest of the world with leaving the church and decided not to go on a mission. But yeah, he basically told me I'm not special. Another thing he said was my life struggled with polygamy, but she learned to cope with it.
John Dehlin [02:00:53] His wife.
Benson Lawson [02:00:54] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:00:54] Yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:00:55] And his wife's a very nice lady. But basically what I talked to him about was all the. I told him I'm not going on my mission. I talked about all my worries that we outlined earlier and he responded with like, the answers of just have faith and you need to do this or else your life is going to end in ruin. You won't find celestial happiness.
John Dehlin [02:01:15] Yeah, keep going those quotes. There's a couple more.
Benson Lawson [02:01:18] Yeah. Another thing he said was that you can lie about your worthiness and still go to the temple. That was something that really took me aback. And just thinking about it, like, my dad did that a lot. My dad didn't drink coffee or my dad drink coffee, sorry, drink coffee. And my dad was drinking beer and stuff during my family's marriage, but he was lying on his temple recommend interviews and still going to the temple just to keep his family intact at the time.
Benson Lawson [02:01:43] And like I was talking about, one of the big things about this meeting was that I do not sustain the prophet. The prophet is an imperfect man. The word of wisdom is imperfect. It something about the word of wisdom that really bothered me was that it says no coffee, right? But it doesn't say no soda, no caffeine.
Benson Lawson [02:02:02] Whereas, like, coffee is pretty compared to soda. Coffee is healthy for you. Like, soda's pretty bad for you. And coffee, like, it doesn't have Any known detriments. So the word of wisdom is supposed to be a law of health and it does not.
Benson Lawson [02:02:21] The word of wisdom as a law of health does not act as a law of health because it is denying coffee while it doesn't deny soda and things that are objectively unhealthy for you. And with that flaw, I said, I don't sustain the prophet because if he were truly leading us righteously, he would note this flaw and fix it and make it so the word of wisdom actually leads us.
John Dehlin [02:02:42] And technically the word of wisdom condemns hot drinks.
Benson Lawson [02:02:46] Is that what it states? Exactly.
John Dehlin [02:02:47] It says hot drinks. And so that's been interpreted to mean coffee. But then in a modern era, what if it's a nice, you know, latte and is hot chocolate bad? Like, but, but I mean, at this
Benson Lawson [02:02:58] point it's just coffee. Like, and I believe it was caffeine for a while and then they invested in Coca Cola or something and that went away. Is that right?
John Dehlin [02:03:06] I mean, the church has invested in Pepsi, I think in Coke for a long time in its investment portfolio. But caffeinated soda was for forbidden at BYU Provo and BYU Idaho for 50, 100 years. I don't know, 50 years at least until recently. And it was a huge deal when the BYU's let in caffeinated soda. So it's an example of the silliness of the evolution. But when I was growing up, there were families, entire families that would boast with pride that none of them had ever tried a Coke or a Pepsi. You know what I mean?
Benson Lawson [02:03:45] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:03:46] And now nobody cares.
Benson Lawson [02:03:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:03:47] You know, and so it's, it is kind of ridiculous. The word of wisdom has some good things in it, but it's also kind of ridiculous.
Benson Lawson [02:03:54] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:03:54] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:03:55] Like the drugs, the alcohol, it's like things I can get behind, but soda, not having coffee not. But being able to have soda just doesn't make sense.
John Dehlin [02:04:04] Yeah, I mean, the word of wisdom doesn't say anything about drugs.
Benson Lawson [02:04:07] Does it not?
John Dehlin [02:04:08] No.
Benson Lawson [02:04:08] Oh, okay.
John Dehlin [02:04:09] Not Joseph Smith's version.
Benson Lawson [02:04:11] Okay.
John Dehlin [02:04:11] In fact, it says herbs of the field are good. And some interpret that to mean marijuana is. Okay. Actually, the word of wisdom allows mild drinks of barley, which meant beer at the time. So the word of wisdom allows beer and wine. What it doesn't allow are like liquor, hard whiskey. Whiskey, you know, or brandy. So I mean, we don't even. It's such a cluster thing, you know?
Benson Lawson [02:04:36] So anyway, yeah, my English class in byu, I think it was like second term I had a paper about coffee versus soda and like, caffeine drinks and all that. And basically my. It was like an argumentative essay. And my conclusion was that the word of wisdom is not doing its job and it needs to be refurnished. Yeah, it needs to be fixed.
John Dehlin [02:04:59] We're totally off topic, but, like, we are. The word of wisdom says only eat meat in times of winter or famine. And Mormons eat meat all summer long.
Benson Lawson [02:05:07] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:05:07] You know what I mean? Love their barbecue. So it's. We don't even totally pay attention to it, but we digress. Okay, keep going. Other quotes from your stake president.
Benson Lawson [02:05:18] Yeah, there was one.
John Dehlin [02:05:19] Was he saying he what, didn't mind if you lied? Oh, he said about your worthiness.
Benson Lawson [02:05:23] Like, he could ask these questions and I could say I could lie about it and still get into the temple.
John Dehlin [02:05:27] Why would a state president suggest it was okay to lie in your temple recommend interview?
Benson Lawson [02:05:32] I guess just people's lives are so different sometimes. And like I said, Redmond is a little bit more of a Lucy Goosey, progressive Mormon area. So I think he was just doing this so I could do all the rightmore and things, but maybe I have these other factors in my life. So I think he wanted you to
John Dehlin [02:05:50] go to the temple.
Benson Lawson [02:05:51] I think he wanted me to stay in the church, but he wanted me to just lie so I could stay in the church because he knows these things about me, these things I'm doing wrong, and he just wants me to lie about doing them wrong. He wants me to have build up a cognitive dissonance in my mind so I can still be a good Mormon. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:06:11] And I think stake presidents are evaluated by how many young men and young women they send on missions. So he would have had an incentive for you to go.
Benson Lawson [02:06:19] Oh, yeah, sure.
John Dehlin [02:06:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:06:22] And then despite saying that I can lie on my temple recommend, he said next that I don't think you should be worthy for your temple recommend anymore because I don't sustain the profit.
John Dehlin [02:06:33] Valid. That's valid.
Benson Lawson [02:06:34] Yeah. He didn't take it away in that meeting, but immediately after that, I went home and talked to my mom about it. My mom and the stake president have had beef in the past, so, yeah, she got really mad at him.
John Dehlin [02:06:49] For which part?
Benson Lawson [02:06:50] Just all of it. Everything he said to me, how he treated me with harshly instead of love. I try to take my temple recommend away. My mom's a very kind of get what she wants kind of person in the church. She always goes to the bishops, goes to the stake presidents. She would always go to our bishop about the conversations he'd have with like minors about like masturbation, stuff like that. And it was really funny because my bishop, he's a bit younger and when he gets uncomfortable, he has a really big stutter. And when she'd talk about masturbation to him, he'd stutter a lot. But yeah, she reached out to her brother in law. Her brother in law has some connection with the area authority of the seventy in the Pacific Northwest area. And that guy got pretty upset with our stake president. And recently he got replaced with a
John Dehlin [02:07:40] new guy, but possibly early, earlier than
Benson Lawson [02:07:43] he would have, I'm not sure. But he nonetheless, he got in trouble for the things or the way he treated me.
John Dehlin [02:07:51] Okay.
Benson Lawson [02:07:52] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:07:52] Okay.
Benson Lawson [02:07:54] I never got an apology, but I feel like an apology after that discussion would have done something for the Mormon Church in my eyes. But since he never apologized, it's just kind of in my mind locked in the idea of the Mormon Church isn't the best thing. Moron church isn't good. The Mormon Church isn't perfect for me. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:08:16] Before you talk about like the fork in the road that you take after that stake president interview, you mentioned in your list of shelf items. DNC 88118 Seek learning by studying faith. And. And Renlund and a talk Renlund gave. Okay, did you tell us about. Because I would love to hear that.
Benson Lawson [02:08:37] So DC8118 seek clear by studying faith. I took that pretty literally and I was seeking the truth by seeking out sources. I talked to a BYU professor about all the questions I had. He gave me a very roundabout answer. Why he had all these questions about faith, like LGBTQ people, money in the church. The way he answered them was he drew like a target, like a bunch of circles. He said in the middle circle is like the core doctrine and the outer circles are your questions, these minute problems in the church. He said despite these minute differences, you need to focus on the things in the middle, the things that really matter, the core doctrine, the Christlike attributes.
Benson Lawson [02:09:22] That's how BYU professors, I feel like they're all given this way to approach questions. But yeah, the answer there was just focus on the Christ like attributes and have faith. That's how you can get through your trial. Another person I reached out to is my dad. He had been out of the church for a couple years by now. And with this he gave me a discussion about like all the problems with the church. Rather than rebuting my.
Benson Lawson [02:09:54] My faith crises questions, he kind of affirmed them for the first time with these questions he gave me Answers like, oh, yeah, I agree with this. And then he actually directed me towards the CES letter. And. Yeah, after reading that, you're sorry, your dad did. Yes.
John Dehlin [02:10:17] Okay.
Benson Lawson [02:10:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:10:18] So he knew about the ces.
Benson Lawson [02:10:19] Oh, yeah. My dad was out of the church by this point, but not everyone who
John Dehlin [02:10:21] leaves the church knows about the ces. Yeah, okay.
Benson Lawson [02:10:24] Yeah. But he directed me towards that. And reading through that, seeing everything, affirmed all my beliefs against the church. It showed me that the church has damaged people. It's not just my life that's damaged, but it's damaged hundreds, hundreds of thousands, even lots of people. And my mental health crisis is just a person in a crowd of lots of crises, faith crises, things that are happening to people. I'm just another person the church has hurt. So I'm not just that, but I'm another person the church has hurt. So I'm not alone in this. There are people out there who can help me. People out there who know what it's like. People out there I can turn to.
John Dehlin [02:11:09] That's beautiful.
Margi Dehlin [02:11:09] Yeah, it's beautiful.
Benson Lawson [02:11:10] And then I talked to some other adults in the church, like, adults. I have a high school teacher who's not my dad. At the high school I went to, he was Mormon, but he, like, swears a lot in classes, so I assumed that he was, like, a cooler Mormon. I talked to him about why he stays in the church, and he stays in, like, just for the community, just, you know, have people. He, like, tries to do all the beliefs for his family. He likes the foundation it sets. But frankly, that wasn't enough for me because although I'd have a community, although I'd have a good system of beliefs, a good place to raise children, it was very damaging to my mental health to be there. And I didn't want to live a life being a Mormon
John Dehlin [02:11:59] just because I really like some of these bullets. Did you mention what. What it was about? Dale Renlund's talk was important.
Benson Lawson [02:12:07] This goes with DC88118. He has a talk that's called Observation,
John Dehlin [02:12:14] Faith, Reason, and Revelation.
Benson Lawson [02:12:15] Yeah, I had to. I had to, like, analyze that talk for. It was like an exercise science class at byu. We're learning about the scientific method. And basically the crux of that talks is just to get to faith and to get to knowledge, you have to use observation and reason as well. And I believe, like, I probably interpreted it the way they didn't want me to interpret it, but I started using outside choices of the church. Yeah, I started getting in all the information. I started affirming my beliefs with other things other than the Church. This is the point where rather than using church only sources, I was looking to other things. Looking to things beyond the church. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:13:00] And so you wrote Happiness in Heaven and Korihor's death.
Benson Lawson [02:13:03] Oh, yeah. That was a Book of Mormon paper I wrote. Or there's two papers I wrote. It was called our. I don't recall what it was called, but we had. Oh, like our question paper, our spiritual question paper. And with these two papers, the happiness in heaven one. I had a question that was, how can we be happy in heaven if we aren't sad all the time? Because something that I like, believe is that you can't be happy unless you're sad too, if you don't have lows.
John Dehlin [02:13:35] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:13:35] And in heaven we're told, like, we live a life of eternal joy. Wouldn't a life of eternal joy just be boring?
John Dehlin [02:13:42] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:13:42] Like, wouldn't a pure joyful eternity be equivalent to hell?
John Dehlin [02:13:47] Valid.
Benson Lawson [02:13:48] Like, so I had that question. The answer I had there was just have faith. In the end, that was the answer to my paper. And then Korishor's death. It's like, why did Kori Whore have to die if you don't know? Kori Whore was like the equivalent of like a philosopher during Book of Mormon times. And he was killed for having these beliefs outside of the church. Outside of. Was it one of the Nephi's or Alma, I forget. But it was a human. I don't know.
John Dehlin [02:14:16] He's questioning whether God exists, whether you need a savior, whether you need a church.
Benson Lawson [02:14:21] He was coming to the church with a very philosophical line of thought. He was using logic is basically what I was at the time. He was just someone who didn't fully believe. And rather than like treating him with love in the Book of Mormon, he just straight up died. Like,
John Dehlin [02:14:40] was he the one that died in ignominious death or was that.
Benson Lawson [02:14:42] I think it was Apostate.
John Dehlin [02:14:43] I'm pretty sure one of the apostates in the Book of Mormon.
Benson Lawson [02:14:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:14:47] Run over by like oxen or something like stampede. Like, God just tramples him with animals. Okay.
Benson Lawson [02:14:55] I feel like killing apostates is something that didn't resonate with me because when you treat everyone with love.
John Dehlin [02:14:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you mentioned First Corinthians 13, 4, 7.
Benson Lawson [02:15:04] That is a scripture I really love. And it just talks about the definition of love, what it is, everything about it. And the church, the way they treat others, the way they treat homosexual people. Their history with African Americans does not at all align with that verse.
John Dehlin [02:15:20] Yeah. Okay. Thank you for.
Benson Lawson [02:15:22] That's just more. Some. Some more shelf stuff right there.
John Dehlin [02:15:25] Yeah. And I just. I love all that stuff. So thanks for being willing to talk about that.
Benson Lawson [02:15:31] Yeah, for sure.
Life After Mormonism: Oregon, Relationships, and Rebuilding
Margi Dehlin [02:15:33] Wait, can I go back to that moment in time where you decided and you staked your claim in your own life? I just want to go like. So do you remember in the summer? That summer? Because I'm thinking this. This entry you just read last year, a year ago May, right? Yeah, just last year again, like, did. Did you notice your sense of purpose? What it did to your sense of purpose to kind of say, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to Oregon. I'm not going back to byu and I'm not going on a mission. What it did to your. Your level of anxiety and this feeling of. Of purpose.
Benson Lawson [02:16:15] Yeah. So with my mission being my purpose, like I mentioned earlier, that was just a purpose I did not want to have. It wasn't something I wanted to have, or it wasn't something I wanted to have, but it made me super sad, super depressed. Having to believe in that, having that to be my purpose, but taking that away. I'm able to go to Eastern Oregon University now. My purpose can again be school. I got accepted on the track team there. I was a hurdler, 400 hurdles.
John Dehlin [02:16:42] Oof.
Benson Lawson [02:16:42] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:16:43] Wow.
Benson Lawson [02:16:43] Rough event. But that was my purpose. Now I was a hurdler for a track team, and it was just a fun time.
Margi Dehlin [02:16:52] And how about the anxiety component? Did it affect or dread? I don't. I don't.
Benson Lawson [02:16:57] I didn't have any leaning dread after that because I didn't have a mission to go on. So I had truly no more worries about what the church would do to me. I was still, at this point, hanging out in the church. I had a calling where I was the one in charge of, like, the pamphlets or the brochures that you get for sacrament meeting.
Margi Dehlin [02:17:16] Oh, right, yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:17:18] After I didn't go on the mission, I was still attending church. It's this weird kind of phase, but okay. The bishop gave me that calling just so I could have some purpose in the church. But what I'd do is I'd make these pamphlets and. Or these brochures and I'd go to church, just hang out for the first hour and then leave. I just go to church to get my calling done.
Margi Dehlin [02:17:41] I see.
Benson Lawson [02:17:42] But I didn't like going to church at all. Like, I would. It was almost like a comedy show. Sometimes I go listen to, like, testimonies and stuff, listen to talks and just like. I know that's not true. I know that's not true. It's just going to church with all the information is a different experience. It's almost less boring sometimes. But after I left the church and definitely left the church, when I moved to Eastern Oregon University, which is in Legrand, Oregon, pretty small town, that's at the point I definitely left. But after I left, the church almost seemed a lot more interesting than it was before, because up until that point, I had been learning about the church my whole life. But it was the same teaching, the same things I'm always learning. It was just relearning things over and over again.
Margi Dehlin [02:18:28] Right.
Benson Lawson [02:18:29] Regurgitate information. It was just boring. But after I left the church, there's all this new information. There's the Mormon Stories podcast. There's all this. These new things. I can look at all these new stories. I can listen to all this weird information about church history that I didn't know about before it became this thing to study that was actually interesting because it wasn't regurgitated information.
John Dehlin [02:18:54] Yeah, yeah. And I imagine that felt. I don't know. How did that feel? To be able to find those types of resources?
Benson Lawson [02:19:06] Quite refreshing. Like, I cared about studying the church history at this point because I was looking at it just freely, rather than through the lens of the moron church.
Margi Dehlin [02:19:18] Yeah, right. Their narrative or their version that you just kind of go over and over. Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:19:26] I'm glad you were able to find resources to help. Yeah, yeah. Because you mentioned. I love what you wrote in your outline. Basically, you write, this is the point. Where do you want to. That's right before resolution stories. Do you want to. I make the. Make the points that you were making right after your talk with your stake president. You talk about kind of this fork in the road.
Benson Lawson [02:19:51] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:19:52] So. Because. Because I'll just say this, that the mark of a high demand religion, in my perspective, or an unhealthy religion, is they're constantly getting you to deny what's inside, to deny what is makes you happy, to deny what you think is real or true or soulful or your purpose or meaning. And instead they're trying to tell you how to feel, how to think, what to do, who to be and what your purpose is. And for some people, that might work great. And they really do well being and doing what the church tells them.
John Dehlin [02:20:28] So in that sense, there's this term. I learned that a cult works great until it doesn't. And for some people, it works until they die. I guess in theory, there's. For other people, that same path is toxic, and it can lead to not wanting to live anymore. And so you were clearly suffering under the church's plan for you, being as faithful as you could be all the way through BYU and getting your mission call. Right.
John Dehlin [02:20:56] But what. What you decided to do wasn't to keep packing it down, to keep trying to find happiness within the church's plan for you. You decided that you were going to finally start listening to you and doing what you felt like made you happy. So I think that's the secret to happiness for almost everybody. Honestly, it's.
Margi Dehlin [02:21:21] It's literally, to me, it feels like you, in that moment, saved yourself.
Benson Lawson [02:21:29] Yeah, it's a really good way to put it. Like, throughout my whole senior year and up until the mission or up until that final conversation, I had had many conversations with, like, my bishops and a stake president. I had these doubts, like, ooh, this mission thing's kind of big. But he's like, don't worry, it'll be all right. You can do it. I remember I had one conversation with my bishop where I was talking about having these little doubts about my mission. And he told me about his son who had gone on a mission, and he was like, he didn't want to go at all. But then he went and he had a great time, got back.
Benson Lawson [02:22:01] He's super happy now. And rather than them telling me to make my own choice, it was like, you can make your own choice, but here's a bunch of reasons to go on top of it. So it was very biased towards going on the mission. And every time I had these conversations with my church leaders, I always stayed steadfast with the mission. But it wasn't until this final conversation with my stake president where I had all these doubts, I was super depressed. My life was at an all time low where, like, if I had gone a mission, if I had stayed steadfast with the church after that meeting, I don't even know what would have happened to me.
Benson Lawson [02:22:40] It would have just been a very poor decision. It wouldn't have been the best thing for my life at all. I knew at that point the right decision was to not go on the mission in order to be happy, in order to find the purpose that I believe in.
John Dehlin [02:22:55] And I've had many people sit in that chair and tell me they went on the mission anyway. And some of them have said they no longer wanted to live because they went on worry about that's where I
Benson Lawson [02:23:10] could have gone, had I gone.
John Dehlin [02:23:11] Yeah, Like I'm walking across a bridge and I start looking over the bridge that I've had interviewees and I. And I think to the church's credit, part of why they were maybe even delayed your mission call is because I don't think the church feels like it benefits from having suicidal missionaries. So they were probably trying to keep you from becoming a suicidal missionary, which I guess in some sense was good. Even though you were annoyed by the church delaying your mission call, it was probably good for you.
Benson Lawson [02:23:43] It was definitely a good thing. It's just that they put so much emphasis on the mission. They just, like, can't go.
Margi Dehlin [02:23:48] That's right. And the judgment around if you delay or if you.
John Dehlin [02:23:53] Yeah, say it again. They put so much emphasis.
Benson Lawson [02:23:56] So much emphasis on the mission that you just can't not go as a. As a fight here.
John Dehlin [02:24:00] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:24:01] Despite mental health, despite all the issues you have, you still just can't not go. Because if you don't go, you get judged, you get shamed. It's just such a big thing within the church that no matter how hard your life is, no matter what you're dealing with, you still need to go to be a good Mormon, to get a good Mormon husband or wife. It's just, I think one of the things that's very imperfect with the modern
John Dehlin [02:24:24] Mormon Church, to have your parents be proud of you, to have your ward members be proud of you, just to feel good about yourself in that framework. Right. Because the rest of your life you're going to tell people, when they say, where'd you serve your mission? If you don't serve a mission, what are they gonna. What are you gonna have to say to everyone who asks you? That's a common Mormon question. You meet someone, hey, where'd you serve your mission? Right. Well, to say, oh, I didn't.
Benson Lawson [02:24:48] They're like, oh, didn't President Nelson not serve a mission?
John Dehlin [02:24:53] Neither did President Oaks or Eyring. None of the current First Presidency is served a mission. And yet our modern Mormon culture, and to the Church's credit, again, more than ever, they're trying to reduce the stigma of early mission return or of not serving a mission, because believe it or not, is as terrible as it was for you. Way worse. 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.
Benson Lawson [02:25:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:25:20] So the Church is trying to give the Church credit. They're trying to make progress, but that's after generations of depression and anxiety and even suicide. So, I mean, they were kind of like all the changes for the Church, they were kind of forced to make those changes. But even as much changes as they've made, as of a year ago, you were in this situation.
Benson Lawson [02:25:41] Yeah. So I feel like they're going in the right direction and maybe with honestly, a few decades, they'll be there. But we're. As it stands, the church is not doing the right thing to help us missionaries to help mental health in the church. It's still a very hard life to live if you don't want that life.
John Dehlin [02:25:59] Yeah, yeah. Not hard. And what someone's going to say, like, my Mormon brain was going, oh, well, that's. Oh, you didn't want to serve in Oklahoma. Well, that's pride. You know what I mean?
Margi Dehlin [02:26:10] Or that's why I brought that up earlier.
John Dehlin [02:26:12] I know. Yeah. No, I'm. Yeah, I'm just saying. And also. Well, you just, you know. Yeah. The celestial kingdom, you have to really earn it. And some people don't want to face all the challenges, you know, that get you to exaltation. So, yeah, you don't serve a mission because you kind of weren't strong enough or weren't committed enough. You know, that's how a Mormon might interpret that decision. Right.
Benson Lawson [02:26:37] If I do face all these challenges, then, if I did face all those challenges, then I bet the suicide risk for me would have been way up
John Dehlin [02:26:43] there, a thousand percent. And that's what the church knows now. You know, because they've got so many missionaries coming home. By the way, a lot of the missionaries that come home early come home because they don't believe anymore. But the church labels it as depression.
Benson Lawson [02:26:57] Isn't like 40% of missionaries leave the church now after they come home, is that right?
John Dehlin [02:27:01] I mean, I've heard crazy numbers between 40 and 60%.
Benson Lawson [02:27:05] That's insane.
John Dehlin [02:27:06] Yeah. Are leaving the church within a year or two of coming home. But again, the church, you only hear those statistics from, like, people who attend private meetings and training meetings. But the church won't release the numbers, but we know it's super high. Numbers of Mormon missionaries have anxiety and depression on their missions, come home early from their missions, and leave the church within two years of coming home from their missions. The numbers are extraordinarily high.
Benson Lawson [02:27:36] What is, as far as church membership goes, is it decrease or is it decreasing or increasing right now? Because I've heard different things.
John Dehlin [02:27:43] So in Africa, it's growing like gangbusters, but that's because they don't have access to the Internet and because they're so poor that the Mormon Church is probably good for them. In the United States, the only thing keeping the Mormon church from shrinking in terms of active membership is the birth rate. There's still like a, you know, decent sized birth rate amongst faithful believing Mormons in the U.S.
John Dehlin [02:28:11] and that very tiny birth rate is enough to offset all the people leaving. But by all accounts, the Mormon church is growing at less than 1% in the United States, which is its slowest growth rate ever. And you know, just here in Utah there are stakes and wards and Mormon chapels being closed all the time. So if the church is in massive decline here in Salt Lake county and in many surrounding, just think about what it's like in Oklahoma, you know, or Arkansas or Oregon, California, the church is in decline full stop.
John Dehlin [02:28:52] And then, you know, in Europe, in Western Europe, the church is in free fall. Like it's shrinking, hemorrhaging, you know. So what the church does is it expands in the Philippines and Latin America and Africa to offset all the places in the developed world where it's in free fall. That's my, you know, if, if you believers, listeners don't agree with that, show me the numbers. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't mean to get a subtract.
Margi Dehlin [02:29:22] I think, I think one thing you bring up John, that's interesting when you talk about, well, members would say, you know, whatever he wasn't willing to do the. It's like, well, the members will always, you know, give a representation of this sense of use. Like the church is not necessarily created for the members happiness and fulfillment. Fulfillment. Right. It's about more of it getting what it wants from its members. So for me, it almost doesn't even make sense to, to say that because really what this to me symbolically your journey in this moment was like you, you put, and I meant when I said it like you put a stake, you, you claimed your own life.
Margi Dehlin [02:30:13] It was like, yep, I get it. You might have a lot of plans for me. You have a lot of feelings about, you know, my salvation if I don't do what you say or your formula. And at this point I'm going to save myself and I'm claiming my life for me and I have a sense for what will make me happy. And we'll see, like, we'll see how it. But I'm willing to take the risk and I'm actually going to drive my own car for my life. Right. As opposed to, and that I just feel like is worth noting.
Benson Lawson [02:30:44] Yeah. At this point, like I had been trying in the church for, on my own for like over a year now. I've been trying to Be happy in the church, but it just wasn't working. I tried everything. I trusted in God for so long. I had prayed for happiness for so long, but it just did not work. I knew that if I did literally anything else, I'd be happy. And all I wanted, honestly was happiness while in the church. The motivation I had to stay in the church was to promise of eternal joy. But when I had that one question of are we really going to have eternal joy in heaven? That. That promise, that incentive kind of got washed out.
Margi Dehlin [02:31:23] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:31:23] And. Yeah. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:31:28] So.
John Dehlin [02:31:30] Yeah. So how you've already alluded to this, but talk about how your mental health and happiness and for purpose and fulfillment and your love life and your education has all progressed since making that very important decision. I have to say one last thing.
Benson Lawson [02:31:49] Okay.
John Dehlin [02:31:50] I had this. I had this aha moment once because when I was a missionary, there were like slacker missionaries. And those of us who are good missionaries always look down on the slacker missionaries. And the people we really looked down on were the people that didn't go on missionaries. After I had my faith crisis and realized all the problems with the church, I thought to myself, what if the ones that didn't go on missions or the ones who hated their missions and weren't great missionaries just figured out that the church wasn't what it claimed to be 10 or 20 years before I did, and that's why they chose not to go, or that's why they hated their mission and were slackers.
John Dehlin [02:32:29] And it made me. It turned on its head, the stigmas that I had, realizing that some of the people that don't go on missions were. Or hate their missions and don't excel are just smarter or figure it out earlier. Yeah, I just. I just had to say that.
Benson Lawson [02:32:44] That's a good note.
John Dehlin [02:32:45] You like that?
Benson Lawson [02:32:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:32:46] You like that? Reframe?
Benson Lawson [02:32:47] Sure. Yeah. Prior to leaving to Eastern Oregon University, when I was still in Redmond at home for that summer, and when I didn't go on my mission, I had to tell everyone in my ward that I wasn't going on my mission. I had to tell all my church friends, and I lost lots of friendships. I lost a lot of respect from everyone.
Benson Lawson [02:33:07] There was one of my seminary teachers asked me about my mission. I told him I wasn't going. And then rather than this is like the one person who I am grateful for in the church who I talked to about my mission, but they, rather than rebuking me, they told me to come to seminary and share my story, which I think was huge. But they brought me in with two of my seminary friends from when I was in seminary, but in front of like the current seminary class at that time. The other two talked. They talked about where they were going, where they got called, and then I was up at the end.
Benson Lawson [02:33:40] I'm like, well, I'm not going anymore. And I didn't really get an applause or anything. I didn't get anything grandiose after. I kind of stayed that my two friends didn't talk to me anymore that day. I haven't talked to them since. I've had lots of friends in the church just not talk to me. After I decided not to go.
Benson Lawson [02:34:01] I told one that I'm not going. He's told me, well, Benson, why would you do that? Like, obviously super disappointed me. I had one returned missionary talk to me, and while this was. We were having an activity. It was like rope swinging or something. And naturally I was like, shirtless to go swimming and my tattoo is visible.
Benson Lawson [02:34:19] And we were like, buzzed up until that point. He had just returned from his mission and he was trying to coerce me into going still. But then he saw my tattoo and he got real quiet. Like just that one little thing made him realize, I'm out, I'm done.
Benson Lawson [02:34:32] And it's just another friendship I lost. When I talk to people in the church and tell them I left, it's like, oh, that's nice, but. Or that's good that you made that decision for yourself. But behind their voice, I can just see the judgment. I can see the. The disappointment. And it's just really hurting to talk to these people that were once my friends, people that once respected me, people who I had bonds with, and they just don't respect me anymore. We're not friends anymore. They're connections I lost.
Benson Lawson [02:35:01] And this was a very hard time where just kind of everything in the church broke down. And the church turned at this point from a place where I felt love and community to a place where I felt just judgment. I go and I felt judged. I felt eyes on me all the time. I felt like everyone was just looking at me, judging me, being disappointed in me. Because I was like, mentioned way earlier, I was the Peter priesthood. I was the role model for everyone. I wanted to be the role models for my brothers. And after not choosing to go on my mission, it all broke down.
Benson Lawson [02:35:33] And I felt like all the disappointment, all the shame, all the guilt I worried so much about, I accepted it all because I knew that would be better than being depressed, better than hating my life.
Margi Dehlin [02:35:46] Yeah, yeah. Yep.
John Dehlin [02:35:48] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so glad you made that decision. You know, I think it was courageous. It was insightful, and ultimately, it was just really good for you. Oh, yeah. That makes me so happy for you.
Benson Lawson [02:36:03] Thank you.
John Dehlin [02:36:04] Yeah. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:36:05] So when you. Can I ask, are we at the point where you would share a couple things about when you went to Oregon, in your experience, school there? Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:36:15] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:36:15] Are we at that, or is there anything left?
John Dehlin [02:36:18] Yeah. Is there joy or happiness after deciding not to serve a mission?
Margi Dehlin [02:36:21] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:36:21] Oh, yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:36:22] So prior to going to Eastern Oregon University, at this point, I was on the track team, so I was doing, like, the track workouts on my own in Redmond. But a week before I left for LeGrand, which is where Eastern Oregon University is, it's a small university, only like, 4,000 people. That's one of Oregon's rural universities. That's an NAI school, which is, like, lower than D3, but it's really small. Really small community. But prior to going, about a week before I met, I reconvened with a friend from middle school. We were both in the band. We both played French horn. We were at opposing schools throughout middle school and high school. And we hit off really well. We started dating. Her name's Kaylee, and we're still together.
John Dehlin [02:37:11] And she's in the room.
Benson Lawson [02:37:12] She is in the room.
John Dehlin [02:37:14] She's waving.
Margi Dehlin [02:37:15] In this very room.
John Dehlin [02:37:16] In this very room.
Benson Lawson [02:37:18] Yeah. We hit off super well. And she is the least Mormon person you'll ever meet. Both of her parents are, like hardcore atheists. She has a lot of tattoos, lots of piercings, colored hair. And I felt like just this life and all this color and all this uniqueness she had was just what I needed in a relationship, because the Mormon mold of, like, a perfect girl who's just like me wasn't what I wanted. I wanted someone who's unique. I wanted someone to put color into my black and white. And I felt like that's what she did for me.
Benson Lawson [02:37:51] And here's the bitter part of all this sweetness. We met, like, a week before I left for LeGrand, so over that school year, we had to do long distance, but it worked out. So, yeah, beautiful. Yeah. And in the grand, I was super happy the whole time. It was a really good experience being on the track team because it was a small university. I made a lot of good friends.
Benson Lawson [02:38:17] Something about it, though, I went. I tested out one more church there. Just went to see what it was like. I checked out the ysa and there was a. So it was during Bastion Testimony meeting, someone said that they can't imagine their life without the Mormon Church.
Benson Lawson [02:38:36] And just hearing that just kind of reaffirmed that belief I had that I don't need the Mormon Church. I have other purpose now. I have my girlfriend, I have the track team I'm on. I have purpose beyond the church. That is enough for me. That's more than enough for me, honestly. And I don't need the church for my purpose. And that was like the last official church meeting I went to as a member, I'd say. And from that point, I spent my Sundays doing other things, like actually resting because they say Sunday is a day of rest, but is it really a day of rest for like stake presidents or bishops to spend all day at church, to spend all day in meetings?
Benson Lawson [02:39:15] You wake up like what some people like 8:00am so you can get to your 9:00 church? Sunday is not a day of rest for Mormons, having been a Mormon for 18, 19 years of my life. So it's nice using Sunday as a day of rest now. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:39:36] Do you, do you have a sense for a purpose now?
Benson Lawson [02:39:38] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:39:39] What, What. How would you describe that?
Benson Lawson [02:39:41] Like, I mentioned my girlfriend and while in Eastern Oregon University, it was track and I'm actually transferring out of Eastern Oregon University. Third transfer, third school now Oregon State University. So I don't have to do long distance with my girlfriend anymore. But transferring has been rough. But my sense of purpose is definitely working towards a career, being with my girlfriend, and that's enough for me.
Margi Dehlin [02:40:04] Yeah. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:40:06] How's your relationship with your dad?
Benson Lawson [02:40:08] My dad, it's really good.
John Dehlin [02:40:11] He had left the church. Did that put a strain between you?
Benson Lawson [02:40:14] It was kind of just like I didn't respect him for a while at all because he left the church. I worried about him a lot. But after I left, we had this thing in common. And his birthday last year, I actually bought him like a voucher for a tattoo and he got like a bunch of alcohol for his birthday. So it felt like this crazy juxtaposition between his old life and his new one. But yeah, my relationship with my dad is good now because we have that in common. The ex woman title.
John Dehlin [02:40:41] And you mentioned your. And you no longer look down on him.
Benson Lawson [02:40:45] Not at all.
John Dehlin [02:40:45] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:40:45] And I feel really bad for looking down on him.
John Dehlin [02:40:48] At one point you came by that honestly and then your mom in the church and your path.
Benson Lawson [02:40:55] So my mom's story is a whole nother story. She could probably.
John Dehlin [02:40:57] Honestly just a little bit.
Benson Lawson [02:41:00] Yeah, she could come on here herself. Honestly, if she wanted to.
John Dehlin [02:41:03] But in terms of your relationship with
Benson Lawson [02:41:06] her, yes, it's good. At this point, she's definitely on the fence herself. But like mentioned earlier, she just wants me to be happy. And no matter, like, I told her I was coming on this podcast, she was super happy for me.
John Dehlin [02:41:17] Really?
Benson Lawson [02:41:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:41:18] She listener.
Benson Lawson [02:41:19] I don't think she listens, like, avidly, but she knows about it. She knew who you two were.
John Dehlin [02:41:23] Okay.
Benson Lawson [02:41:24] And she has a bunch. She has a good little community in the church. They call themselves the. The Hippos. I don't know why, but, yeah, they. They were all super excited for me going.
John Dehlin [02:41:36] Like, they're so active Mormons. Yes, we're excited. In Redmond in Oregon. We're excited that you were going on more of a Story's podcast. I love this story.
Benson Lawson [02:41:46] Yeah. Like, they're super supportive with me talking about my experience because they all know, like, these people know my experience wasn't great. I got hurt. I got really hurt. And they're really excited for me talking about it. And most of these people stay in the church for the community, for the family, for the good beliefs, but they're the kind of more so pick and choose Mormons, the ones who stay in the church just for the good aspects of it. Yeah. And they're ones like, kind of actively fight against the things that are bad, like bishops talking to underage people about their sexual life and stuff like that.
John Dehlin [02:42:25] Yeah. And you say your mom's had some dating success in your outline.
Benson Lawson [02:42:30] So from the time my mom, my dad broke up, she was alone for a while, and I really worried about her. She had, like, our dogs, and I felt like that was it sometimes. I was really worried about her.
John Dehlin [02:42:43] And she went out with both the Mormons in her area and the two.
Margi Dehlin [02:42:46] The two options.
John Dehlin [02:42:47] I'm kidding. But, yeah, there was not a lot of dating options in the church.
Benson Lawson [02:42:52] No, not at all. And with me leaving the church, I really worried that she felt like a failure because I was a failure. She felt like. I worried that she felt like she raised me wrong, that she did something wrong. Because there's definitely a sense of guilt that can be present in the parents of children who chose or chose not to go on a mission. And with my two brothers being having split custody, both of them are pretty inactive, honestly, because they're with my dad most Sundays who doesn't go to church ever. So I was worried that she had guilt there too, about them not attending church. And, yeah. Point being, I worried about her a lot. And then very recently, she Met a guy from her work, a fifth grade teacher at her work.
John Dehlin [02:43:39] And never lds.
Benson Lawson [02:43:40] Never lds. I think he was raised Catholic, I believe, but they hang out a lot. And I was talking to her the other night and something she told me is that the sense of comfort, the sense of well being that she was looking for in the church that she missed in her marriage, she hadn't had this the past two years since the divorce and she found this sense of happiness with her new partner. Yeah. Point being we have a good relationship
John Dehlin [02:44:07] right now and the church teaches wickedness never was happiness. And I think you could argue the church would believe that dating a non Mormon is not righteous. But again, you not serving a mission seems to have really improved your health and happiness.
Benson Lawson [02:44:22] Oh yeah.
John Dehlin [02:44:22] And your mom not trying to confine her dating pool to two Mormon men in her entire area. Dating a non Mormon, apparently that's bringing her happiness.
Benson Lawson [02:44:32] And there was a. I think in her ward there's only like one other Mormon guy her age who was single and he. She had no interest in him whatsoever.
John Dehlin [02:44:43] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:44:43] And she had. Or he had been reaching out to her like multiple occasions.
John Dehlin [02:44:46] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:44:47] The point which she had to go to the bishop and tell him to tell this guy to stop.
John Dehlin [02:44:50] Stop stalking me.
Benson Lawson [02:44:51] Yeah. I thought that was funny.
John Dehlin [02:44:55] Funny and dark. You make, you make a comment, your outline about the church not being built for people. Do you want to make that point?
The Church's Struggles With Single Mothers and Families
Benson Lawson [02:45:02] Yeah. I mentioned this earlier or I alluded to it, I think, but my mom as a single mother, the church is built for families, built for husband and wife. And my mom as a single mother doesn't have full control over her kids all the time because my dad, ex Mormon, non Mormon, no church, she can't control whether they go to church all the time. And my bishop, or the bishop there, sorry, seeing that my two brothers aren't always going to church, asks questions, he's like, hey, where were they this Sunday? And he doesn't let them have active temple recommends because they don't attend church all the time.
Benson Lawson [02:45:33] That's out of their control. That's out of my mom's control because split custody, just legal issues, deals with that. And being a single mother isn't or doesn't always work in the Mormon church because my mom doesn't have full control over whether or not my two brothers go to church. And. Sorry, that's all I got.
John Dehlin [02:45:58] No, I can I just add we talk a lot about the proclamation on the family being problematic and, and usually it's problematic from the standpoint of condemning gay Lesbian, transgender people. But another. This is reminding me of another major way. The proclamation on the family, which is the Mormon Church's statement on families, is deeply problematic. It literally says in there, a husband's role is to preside over the family and provide. And then it says a mother's job is to nurture the children. Now, how does your mom process looking at the Mormon Church's proclamation on the family? She doesn't have a husband in the home, so the husband's supposed to preside. He's not presiding, so it's not fitting that for her. And then the husband's supposed to be providing. Yet as far as I know, she's working, Right?
Margi Dehlin [02:46:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:46:55] And then her job's to nurture the kids, but not the husbands. The ex husband. And I'm sure your dad is providing, nurturing. So in what world does the proclamation on the family in. In its most core sense apply to your mom?
Benson Lawson [02:47:09] Well, not in this one, but when I was still in the house during high school and my parents were divorced, I felt like I took on the role of the priesthood holder in the house.
John Dehlin [02:47:18] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:47:18] And as far as blessings go, we'd have friends over to give those blessings.
John Dehlin [02:47:22] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:47:22] But as soon as I left, the household lost that priesthood authority because my brother, although he was old enough, the middle one, he wasn't an active priesthood holder. He didn't go to church that often.
Margi Dehlin [02:47:33] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:47:34] And it's also dumb.
John Dehlin [02:47:36] Why can't your mom give blessings? Why can't your mom preside? Why can't your mom.
Benson Lawson [02:47:39] Oh, she's a woman. I know, but I'm just. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think women should have priesthood power at this point. I mean, with how progressive the church has been over the past few years, there are some big things, I feel like that are bound to change in order to make the church succeed. But another big thing about priesthood power, there's a rule that missionaries can't be in the presence of like a female if there's not a priesthood holder around in the house. So my mom couldn't have the elders over anymore because she was a stay at home mom. And there's no. Not stay at home mom. Sorry. A single mom. And there was no male in the house. Priesthood holding male, to protect her from the two elders. Was it that she was going to seduce the missionaries or the missionaries were going to assault her? Like, what's the rule there?
John Dehlin [02:48:25] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:48:25] I don't know. And then so she had to take missionaries out to dinner a lot. Yeah, but you haven't had the missionaries over in months.
Margi Dehlin [02:48:33] Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:48:34] Yeah.
Life Without the Church: Rules, Purpose, and Identity
Margi Dehlin [02:48:35] I have a couple specific rebuilding questions for you.
Benson Lawson [02:48:37] Okay.
Margi Dehlin [02:48:39] One is you spoke to briefly about this, but I'd love to know more detail about Sundays. So used to be, you know, Sundays were really church defined. Getting up, going to church. How would you. How are they different now?
Benson Lawson [02:48:56] Yeah. So I always woke up back in the day, like early on Sundays. Everything was super regimented. But now I just sleep in. I do whatever I want, frankly, like, Sunday is a day of rest. One of my favorite things to do right now is to go to a. Just like a local coffee shop, get something to drink, chill and read for a few hours and then just, I mean, anything for the rest of the day. I really like the idea of having Sunday as a day of rest because rest is something that's definitely needed. And I found that after leaving BYU because at byu, I didn't give myself rest.
Benson Lawson [02:49:31] I was still working so hard all the time, trying to be the best I could be, never resting. Yet I felt like I felt more success in life and every, like, professional, personal matter when I get that rest I need on Sunday, just doing anything that my desires have used to.
Margi Dehlin [02:49:48] Yeah, that's great. Okay. Another question I have is early on, you spoke about really liking rules and a sense of structure to your days, like routine. And it feels like, you know, up until recently, a lot of those rules and routines were kind of given to you through or at least were informed by the church in some way. What is your relationship to, like, rules and routines now and what is working for you with regard to that? What update have you made?
Benson Lawson [02:50:25] Yeah, that's a good question. So at this point, as far as rules go, I don't have the word of wisdom or anything anymore. So I kind of just try to stay healthy. I like keeping my body in shape and working out a lot. As far as routine goes, I like working out at least like, three days a week. I want to stay healthy, live a long life. And I mean, over the summer, I'm just working. That's my routine. I just go to work. I'm working two jobs right now. I'm a custodian for our local school district. And then I work at a food truck called the Mighty Greek Food Truck. If you're in central Oregon, check it out. The Mighty Greek Food Truck. We love Greek food.
Margi Dehlin [02:51:01] Yeah, yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:51:03] It's owned by some family, friends, so really good food. Yeah. So work is my routine over the summers. And then once school starts, it's really easy to get routine. It's Just classes and clubs and what have you. But I feel like my routines themselves, my rules are just a lot more free now that I've left the church because I can do all these rules, all these routines without the lens of the Mormon Church. It's all on my own time. It's all based on what I want for my future and for my life. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:51:35] Okay. I just have a couple other ones.
Benson Lawson [02:51:37] All right.
Margi Dehlin [02:51:37] Okay. So I have a question around. It feels like within the church, we come to value ourselves in a certain way. Right. Like the overachieving, perfectionism, following the. The prescribed path like you've described, where it's kind of like do all the things when you're young and then you have, you know, mission, marriage. Right. There's like this very prescriptive way to have value or social currency in the church. So I was going to ask, is that something you have? Clearly you've let that go because you no longer, you know. But, you know, what for you, makes you feel valued? What makes you feel like you have value?
Benson Lawson [02:52:25] Yes. Currently, as someone who's a perfectionist and overachiever as a kid and just throughout my whole teenage years, it's something that was definitely reinforced. So it's something that still kind of plagues me, I guess. I still try to always be doing something just with the caveat that I leave Sunday as a complete day of rest. And I feel like that adds a bit more success and doing all these things. But. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:52:54] Yeah. And then I was going to ask you lastly, what inspires you lately?
Benson Lawson [02:53:01] Inspires me?
Margi Dehlin [02:53:02] Yeah. Like, is it learning? Is it nature? Is it, like, where do you feel a sense of feeling uplifted or inspired?
Benson Lawson [02:53:13] Okay. Yeah. So I guess there's places that make me feel happy, places that bring me inspiration. I mean, I work out a lot. I like running. I like running in nature. We've got a really nice canyon in Redmond. I like running through that. Like working out, the gym feel like places like that or working out is a place I can be alone with my thoughts. And I can get that same kind of meditation I get during prayer just by running. Just by working out, I can be alone. I can just be there with my thoughts. Additionally, like I mentioned earlier, reading at coffee places. I just finished Lemuz. That was a fun read.
John Dehlin [02:53:55] Victor Hugo. That's not a small book.
Benson Lawson [02:53:57] No, it was pretty big. It was like five months, I think. And I'm just starting the the Count of Monte Cristo.
John Dehlin [02:54:03] Also not a small book.
Benson Lawson [02:54:05] I like big books.
Margi Dehlin [02:54:08] That's a great Book. Yeah.
Benson Lawson [02:54:09] And something I didn't touch on earlier, which I'd like to mention another book thing. I started reading Anne Rand's books, the Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, or the other two,
Margi Dehlin [02:54:18] Atlas Shrugged, Atlas Shrugged and then Anthem.
Benson Lawson [02:54:21] Anthem. Yes, thank you.
John Dehlin [02:54:23] Yeah, I read those three nose literature.
Margi Dehlin [02:54:25] I like to read.
Benson Lawson [02:54:26] Yeah, I read those three, and I read those while I was still Mormon. So I feel like the individualistic philosophy kind of gave me again, that outside view beyond the Mormon Church. So reading is definitely a place where I find inspiration. That's a place where I like seeing people's stories, seeing ideas. It's definitely where I do, like the most ruminating, I think.
John Dehlin [02:54:52] Beautiful.
Margi Dehlin [02:54:52] Thanks for that. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:54:56] Well, I just want to say I can't thank you enough. Like, on the one hand, I have so many positive, I don't know, things I experienced or learned from my mission. I also had a lot of mission trauma, and I know on average, most ex Mormons that I talk to say they're glad that they served their mission. So, like, on the one hand, that, on the other hand, I just am really grateful that you're willing to come on, be so vulnerable, share your story and most importantly, provide a role model or hope for people. And again, I. I would guess you're not opposed to people going on missions. You're not opposed to people being in the church.
Benson Lawson [02:55:50] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:55:51] You wrote that in your outline. If somebody wants to be a believing Mormon, if they want to go on a mission. Awesome.
Benson Lawson [02:55:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:55:56] Which I think Margi and I agree as well. What people don't have are enough role models of people saying, you know what? I'm listening inside. This isn't working for me and I'm going to go a different path, even though it's hard. And then hearing that it can be okay. When you were saying at that one point, your stake president telling you, you'll never be happy, you'll. You know, it's dark, you'll be miserable. I've seen this happen before. That just full stop is abusive language.
Benson Lawson [02:56:26] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:56:27] The reason. Go ahead.
Benson Lawson [02:56:28] I'm a very mellow person. Like, very nonchalant. I don't show emotion much. But when he said that to me, that's like the first point in my life where I felt genuine and pure anger. Like, I feel like my motivation for everything after that point was to be happy, to prove him wrong. And prove him wrong. I did so.
Margi Dehlin [02:56:45] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:56:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the reason why that's abusive is because it's. It's abuser language and an abusive partner is always going to tell their partner, number one, I'm abusing you. They're not going to say that they're abusing their partner. But then. Then when the partner wants to leave, they're going to say, you'll never be happy without me. You can't be happy without me. You need me to be happy. Where will you go? You have no options. And that's just a classic abusive relationship.
Benson Lawson [02:57:14] Yeah.
Reflections, Gratitude, and Closing Thoughts
John Dehlin [02:57:15] And so I love. I'm grateful and really appreciate that you're willing to come on and give. Those who just are not feeling like the mission is going to be for them don't want to waste a couple years or put their mental health at risk. You're standing up and saying, hey, I'm one. I'm one instance of somebody that has actually really benefited from declining my mission call or, in theory, not going on a mission at all.
Benson Lawson [02:57:41] And I really hope this reaches those people, those people in the church who are struggling just as I was. I really hope my message reaches them. My intended. My intended audience are those people who are just like me. Yeah. Hope this gets to them so they understand that life will be okay without the LS Church, without their mission. I'm not saying you need to leave it. I'm not saying you don't need to go, but you don't have to if you don't want to.
Margi Dehlin [02:58:08] That's right. That's right. And at this point, one thing I love, I think you said it in a podcast recently, John, the gift of this whole process you've been through is yourself. And the gift is the rest of your life. And that is just heartwarming because. How old are you?
Benson Lawson [02:58:30] 20.
Margi Dehlin [02:58:31] I mean, I'm here for it. And I can't wait to hear or touch base with you as you create a life.
Benson Lawson [02:58:42] Yeah. Before this, like, or before, as a Mormon, my life was very, like, I could see everything. I knew what it was going to look like. But now there's nothing. And that's great. Honestly, I have a world of opportunity ahead of me, and that's just super exciting. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:58:59] It says it all. I think we should end there.
Benson Lawson [02:59:02] I'd like to add a couple of things.
John Dehlin [02:59:03] Okay. Please.
Benson Lawson [02:59:04] Just more about that, I guess on that. There is a Mary Oliver quote from the poem.
John Dehlin [02:59:10] We're here for that.
Benson Lawson [02:59:11] The summer day.
Margi Dehlin [02:59:11] Yeah, I love summer day.
Benson Lawson [02:59:14] It's. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? That quote reinforces what I just said I didn't want to do with my life. The. The Mormon Church. I wanted what I wanted and now I'm working towards it. And then recently there's a song I've been listening to a lot. It's Future Days by Pearl Jamie. The line is I believe. And I believe because I can see our future days, days of you and me. And I feel like I didn't see that in the church. I didn't see my future days at being happy. I just saw them being what the church wanted for me.
Benson Lawson [02:59:52] And it's something I see now with my, with my partner, something I see with my relationship. I see future days of joy. And prior to that, my future was just built on faith. Faith and the hope that I'd be happy. And now I just know that things are going to work out better than they would have in the morning. Church.
Margi Dehlin [03:00:12] That's everything. Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:00:15] So happy for you.
Margi Dehlin [03:00:16] Yeah, that's right.
John Dehlin [03:00:17] Yeah. Anything else?
Benson Lawson [03:00:19] That's all.
John Dehlin [03:00:21] Well, thank you, Benson Lawson, so much for sharing your story with us and traveling to Utah.
Margi Dehlin [03:00:27] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:00:27] To tell your Mormon story.
Benson Lawson [03:00:28] It was a fun trip.
John Dehlin [03:00:30] And Margi, thanks for being my co host.
Margi Dehlin [03:00:34] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [03:00:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thanks to everyone for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Really quickly, we could not do this without the support of our donors. So if you're a donor, thank you. You make this possible. Our ad revenue is in free fall for whatever reason with the algorithm. So we've always relied on donor revenue to be what keeps us afloat. So if you're a donor, thank you. If you're not, we would any value this type of content, you think it could help people?
John Dehlin [03:01:06] We would really appreciate if you would consider going to mormonstories.org donate click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor and we promise, you know our, our finances are transparent, we're tax deductible in the US and we do our best to spend your money in, in aligned with the mission of, of the open source foundation. So please support us if you can financially. If you can't, don't worry at all. We still want to give this away for free. But there are ways you can help us either way. You can subscribe to this channel, you know, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, you can subscribe, even Patreon.
John Dehlin [03:01:48] You can like these episodes. You can comment on them, you can give us your feedback@mormonstoriesgmail.com you can share these episodes if you're aware of a young person who you sense isn't it's not going to be healthy for them to serve a mission. And you think Benson's story might be helpful. Share this episode with them or with their parents just so that people can know all the options and feel that there's hope and a path for them regardless. So sharing this episode is a way to help other people and help us.
John Dehlin [03:02:24] Anyway, thanks so much. We love people to apply. Benson, I think we found out about you because you applied to be on the show.
Benson Lawson [03:02:32] Yeah, I applied. It was a video interview, just a little bit about myself and yeah, then Margi reached out to me and that was that.
John Dehlin [03:02:38] Yeah. So if you feel like you've got a story that you think would our audience would enjoy and benefit from, just go to MormonStories.org, click on the application link or button, fill out the form. It's a little Google form. And then you'll record a three minute video. You'll upload the video and share it with us. We can't accept every applicant because we get a thousand a year and we only do, I don't know, 50 interviews a year. But we're always looking for new and good stories because you know, we know they help people. So please apply right now. I'll just going to put out a call for it.
John Dehlin [03:03:19] For some reason our application pool for like people above 40 has been a little bit less lately. So if you're 40, 50, 60, 70 and you've got a faith journey you want to share, kind of just the traditional Mormon story faith journey.
John Dehlin [03:03:37] We would love to have you apply. So please consider applying in any situation but but in that demographic we would like some more applications so please consider that. And we're always just interested in regular everyday Mormon stories. So anyway, please apply if you want. Thanks for joining us today. 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.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Thumbnail Credit: Image of Benson courtesy of Benson Lawson; Background image from Mark Wallheiser
One Response
This week in Mormon Stories censorship.
What can I say, I knew you traded Mormon lies for leftist lies but I never thought you would ignore the Charlie Kirk assassination. You are a coward.
John, you devoted three episodes on BLM and George Floyd. George Floyd didn’t deserve to die nor did Charlie Kirk. However, you celebrated and went along with the BS narrative of white privilege and the ridiculous notion that words, primarily words you disagree with cause harm. You contributed to the messaging that killed Charlie Kirk. I have posted alternative thoughts on your podcasts multiple times and yet you are too cowardly to let them be public. Chalie was Kirk was killed because a large portion on our country believes it is better to cause actual harm to someone who they disagree with than to hear them out and have a peaceful conversation.
Rightfully so, you chide the Mormon church for censoring and expelling the dissenting voices, but you fail to see the that you’re doing the same thing. I enjoyed your episodes when you stuck to the historical facts, but you shifted, and not in a good way when you decided to buy into the BS narrative of white privilege, toxic masculinity, Black Lies Matter, and Transgenderism.
I’m not a Mormon and I do believe some of their teachings and culture aren’t helpful for some individuals; however, you have given people the wrong impression that Mormon “harms” can be substituted by a better path. Sadly, this isn’t true. A different path just has different “harms”. The alleged killer of Charlie Kirk traded Mormonism for Transgenderism and look what happened.
As I said at the beginning, you are a coward. Give some space for alternative voices on your podcast.