Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 1137

Allan Mount [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's June 26, 2019, and I have today in the Mormon Stories studios in Salt Lake City a couple that I've been wanting to interview for at least a year, if not more. Is it possible that it's more? It's Kattie and Allan Mount. Some of you may not know their names, but many of you will because Marriage on a Tightrope is an emerging phenomenon in the progressive and post Mormon world. Marriage on a Tightrope is a podcast that I think is produced by Bill Real's organization. Does it have a name, the organization? Bill?

Allan Mount [00:01:15] Yeah. Mormon Discussions.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] Mormon Discussions, yeah. So many of you will know Bishop Bill Real, who we interviewed several times on Mormon Stories, who's got a great podcast called Mormon Discussions. He created a network of podcasts that includes the amazing, the phenomenal, Radio Free Mormon, and also Marriage on a Tightrope. Marriage on a Tightrope podcast is co hosted by Kattie and Allan Mount, and it's all about how to navigate a mixed faith marriage. They're in a mixed faith marriage, Kattie and Allan, so they talk about their own journey, but they also interview other couples. And many, many, many Mormon couples that I know listen to it. And they love it because the Mount are charming and delightful and funny and witty and insightful, and also because they're in a mixed faith marriage.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] And so what better remedy for a couple in a mixed faith marriage than a couple in a mixed faith marriage sharing insight? So they've become kind of experts in this field and we've wanted to interview them for some time. So we're interviewing them today. We're going to talk about their backgrounds in the church.

John Dehlin [00:02:30] We're going to talk about their own journey as a mixed faith marriage couple and how they handled that as Allan lost his faith and as they continue to navigate that. And then we're going to actually, for the third part of this interview, talk about their tips and tricks for couples in a mixed faith marriage. And this is just going to be the first in a series of Mormon Stories podcast interviews. Of course, we've covered many mixed faith marriages in the past, but it's time that we really do a deep dive. And of course we want to make sure you know about the Marriage on a Tightrope podcast because they've got great resources, but we want to make sure and give this important topic coverage everywhere we can.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] So we are, and that's what we're gonna do. So a few of you who are in mixed faith. Marriages have reached out to me. Expect over the next few weeks and months, us to be interviewing several couples. Some of them will be couples that Allan and Kattie have already interviewed. Not. Not for any other reason than just we want to just showcase cool people and thoughtful people. So that's what we're doing today.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] We are live streaming this, so we welcome all our Facebook live listeners who are joining us through the Mormon Stories Podcast Facebook page. We want to thank you for joining us and we want to invite you who are listening live to share comments, to share stories, to share insight, to ask questions, and we'll weave them into our discussion today. It's always super interactive and fun to have that live feedback, so we look forward to that.

John Dehlin [00:04:08] Several of you, especially Anthony Miller, have posted comments already, so we'll be also integrating comments that many of you have made asynchronously through Facebook, and we're excited about that. Really quickly, this is all brought to you by the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:04:25] Your donations to Mormon Stories Podcast into the Open Stories foundation make all this possible. So thank you. For those of you who support us. If you find this content valuable, we really appreciate you contributing to the podcast. At MormonStories.org you can click on the donate button. 10, 50, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] We're transparent in our finances. It's all tax deductible in the US and the mission of this nonprofit is to just support people in their transition to save marriages, to save families. And that's what we've been about for 14 years. So please support us if you can also support marriage on a tightrope podcast and the family of podcasts that bill real supports. And you can also donate to to their podcast and we'll make sure they tell you how. So without any further ado, Kattie and Allan Mount, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Allan Mount [00:05:15] Thank you very much.

Kattie Mount [00:05:16] Thanks.

John Dehlin [00:05:17] It's great to have you.

Allan Mount [00:05:18] We're happy to be here. Nervous, nervous excitement to start.

John Dehlin [00:05:21] Yeah, yeah. How are you feeling, Kattie?

Kattie Mount [00:05:24] I'm going to throw up.

John Dehlin [00:05:26] I'm such a teddy bear. Like, why would anybody be scared?

Kattie Mount [00:05:30] I think, like, you know, when you record in, like, the basement and comfort of your own home, going from that to this, like, studio production and someone's interviewing you, it's a little intimidating.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] Oh, well, I was telling the mounts that this studio's only been here a couple months. It's thanks to the generous support of Clint and Jenny Martin that we have a little bit of a studio here and to our donors, but we hope you feel comfortable because you used to have to sit on wooden chairs.

Kattie Mount [00:06:00] That's true at our home, too, so it's fine.

John Dehlin [00:06:04] Well, it's so fun to have you. And your podcast is just doing great things, and I hear about it all the time, and I know when something's making a difference because I hear about it a lot. And you guys are making a great difference. So thank you so much for being willing to share your story. Get ready for the wave of increased interest, because that's what happens when you come on Mormon stories. So if you guys have made a big difference so far, you're going to quadruple that soon.

Kattie Mount [00:06:34] No pressure.

John Dehlin [00:06:35] I hear you're taking a break, so we'll talk about all that.

Allan Mount [00:06:37] Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there.

Kattie's Mormon Upbringing and Background

John Dehlin [00:06:39] Okay. All right, so let's just begin. The first part is just going to be your stories, your Mormon stories. Who wants to go first?

Allan Mount [00:06:48] I think it's fun to start with Kattie, to be honest.

Kattie Mount [00:06:51] Let's just put Kattie on the spot. Why not?

John Dehlin [00:06:53] Kattie, what's your maiden name?

Kattie Mount [00:06:55] New Niu.

John Dehlin [00:06:56] Okay, so tell us your Mormon story.

Kattie Mount [00:06:59] Oh, gosh, where do I start? So I grew up in California until I was the age of 12. My dad is born and raised in Tonga, and my mom is from Ogden, Utah, and they met at byu, Hawaii. And shortly thereafter, my dad moved to Utah. He had family here, and they ended up getting married.

John Dehlin [00:07:28] Now, is your mom of American, US Descent? Is she Polynesian?

Kattie Mount [00:07:34] No, she's not. She is of American descent.

John Dehlin [00:07:37] Okay.

Kattie Mount [00:07:38] I mean, grew up in Ogden. Grew up in Ogden.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] They call them howlies in Hawaii, Palangis and Tongan.

Kattie Mount [00:07:47] And I actually look more Palangi than I do Tongans, so. Which is fine. But, yeah. So we have. I am the oldest of eight kids, and my youngest sister actually leaves on a mission for Tonga in July.

Allan Mount [00:08:02] Her farewell is this Sunday.

Kattie Mount [00:08:03] Her farewell is a Sunday, which is awesome.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] Oldest of eight kids.

Kattie Mount [00:08:07] I'm the oldest of eight kids.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] Oh, wow.

Kattie Mount [00:08:09] So my sister is 19 years younger.

John Dehlin [00:08:13] Tell us really quickly, what can you tell us about what it was like for your dad? Did your dad grow up in Tonga?

Kattie Mount [00:08:17] He did. He grew up in Tonga. Born and raised, went on a mission to.

John Dehlin [00:08:21] How many generations does your dad's family go in the church?

Kattie Mount [00:08:26] Oh, that's a good question.

John Dehlin [00:08:28] More than one?

Kattie Mount [00:08:29] Maybe two. Maybe two. My dad went on a mission to. At the time, it was the Honolulu Mission, but he was sent out to Guam and, like, the Micronesian Islands, and he spent almost the whole mission There and then his brother was working as a professor at BYU Hawaii and sponsored him after the mission to come to BYU Hawaii.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] My understanding is a huge percentage of like Samoa and Tonga are lds. Do you know anything about the kind of population percentages?

Kattie Mount [00:09:08] I don't know the percentages right off hand. They, I would say they are very spiritual, very faithful people. And if it's not an LDS faith, it's a Presbyterian faith or they've. I mean, there's all sorts of religions in Tonga. On Sundays, everything shut down. Everyone goes to church. Everybody. It doesn't matter which church you go to, everyone's there.

Tongan Heritage and Family Influence

John Dehlin [00:09:31] And have you been back to Tonga?

Kattie Mount [00:09:33] I have not.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] You've never been to Tonga?

Kattie Mount [00:09:35] I know my family. My family went in December and we were unable to go with them. And my sister is actually in the middle of adopting a baby from Tonga. So she's there right now.

Allan Mount [00:09:47] Right now.

Kattie Mount [00:09:48] And so my sister. And then my sister's leaving to Tonga. It's just, I mean, we haven't had really any like direct contact with Tonga until just the last six months, which is just so funny.

John Dehlin [00:09:59] Well, I'm just gonna share. I'm. I'm just telling my audience. I want to interview some people from Polynesia who kind of grew up in the church in, in Polynesia and Tonga and Samoa, Maoris, you know, New Zealand, whatever. So just. I'm putting that out there.

Kattie Mount [00:10:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] I wanted to connect what it's like to grow up Mormon in Tonga.

Kattie Mount [00:10:18] In Tonga, yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:20] Or what it's like to grow up in Salt Lake in a Tongan or Samoan family. Because I hear that's a thing.

Kattie Mount [00:10:25] It is a thing.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] And it's.

Kattie Mount [00:10:26] And it is different. This experience growing up here versus in Tonga is a different experience.

Allan Mount [00:10:32] One really fun thing here in Salt Lake is whenever we run into someone that is Tongan, the chances are that we're either related.

Kattie Mount [00:10:39] Yes.

Allan Mount [00:10:40] Because her father has a lot of siblings or they know who the family is. He still has. Her father still has a number of siblings in Tonga that are quite prominent. One was just named to the Tongan Supreme Court and was the first native Tongan to be named to the Tongan Supreme Court, it being a British colony previous to that appointment. So it's really fun to run into Tongans, especially as a 6 foot 7 white guy. And I'm like, do you know the news? I'm a new. And they're. They look at me a little funny.

Kattie Mount [00:11:12] But yeah, my favorite story is we were one time at Lagoon when I was a teenager. And my dad saw this group of Polynesians, and they were having a big feast, and they're at lagoon with their family, and my dad walks over and talks to them, and then like a half hour later, he motions for us, and he says, come and meet your cousins. And we were like, okay. And as soon as we walked over, they. They were like, oh, are you hungry? You want to eat? And Polynesian food is the best. So we definitely wanted to. To do that. So, anyway, so. Oldest of eight, grew up in California till I was about 12.

John Dehlin [00:11:51] Southern California.

Kattie Mount [00:11:52] Southern California. Irvine.

John Dehlin [00:11:53] Isn't there. Isn't. Isn't. Is. Is there a cluster of. Of Polynesian or Tongan or Samoan families in the LA area?

Kattie Mount [00:12:03] Yeah, my dad was in Santa Ana. My dad was called as the branch president when we. Of a Tongan branch, when we.

John Dehlin [00:12:10] Yeah, so that's like the island removed a little bit.

Kattie Mount [00:12:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:14] Is that the culture you grew up in?

Kattie Mount [00:12:16] No. So, I mean, we were in that Tongan branch, and everything was in Tongan, and we didn't speak, and so we learned a little bit, but primary was in English, so there wasn't a problem there. But it was super. We loved it. We loved the Tongan culture.

Kattie Mount [00:12:38] We moved to Irvine, and when we moved to Irvine, my dad got released, and then we started attending a white ward. We just. A normal. Right. A normal Mormon ward. And then we moved to Utah when I was 12, and shortly after we moved, in fact, like three months after we moved, my sister, who was three months old at the time, she was born in Utah right after we moved, and then we moved into our new house, and three months later, she died of sids. And she was. So right now there's seven of us living, and that was really hard on the family. My mom had five of us in seven and a half years, and then she had my sister who passed away. And then.

John Dehlin [00:13:22] How old were you when your sister passed away?

Kattie Mount [00:13:24] I was 12.

John Dehlin [00:13:25] What was that like?

Kattie Mount [00:13:27] Oh, it was. It was hard. You were the oldest, I was the oldest.

John Dehlin [00:13:30] You're kind of like second mom.

Kattie Mount [00:13:32] Yeah. We shared a room, and luckily she had, like, a cold, and so my brother did, too. So my mom put the baby and my brother in the same room for the humidifier. And when I felt really blessed that I wasn't in the room when she found the baby in the morning. And so we. That. I would say that that experience

Allan Mount [00:14:00] really

Kattie Mount [00:14:01] solidified a lot of my feelings about the church and, like, especially families being together forever, because, you know, here my sister died, and she's gone. And now the focus became like, it's about the family. It's about being together and living together forever and being with our sister.

Kattie Mount [00:14:25] And I would say that. That I think jump started me into, like, heavily being Mormon and acting Mormon and doing all things Mormon, really, because up to that point, we had lived in California, where I had lots of friends who weren't lds, who would come and we would have a prayer at the table. My mom would ask our friend, and they were Catholic or they were Jewish or. And they would say their own type of prayer. And it was a different feeling being immersed right in Mormons everywhere, where our whole block was all Mormon kids.

Kattie Mount [00:15:03] And I grew up. Yeah, I grew up in Springville, and it was a great place. I mean, we rode our bikes during the summer all around the city and hung out with friends, and it was a really safe neighborhood. Everyone watched out for each other.

Allan Mount [00:15:20] It's still that way.

Kattie Mount [00:15:20] It's still that way.

Allan Mount [00:15:21] Her parents are still in that same home.

Kattie Mount [00:15:22] Yeah, we're still in the same. My parents are still in the same home I grew up in. And it really was, like, an amazing childhood. I have nothing bad to say about how I grew up.

John Dehlin [00:15:34] Okay. We've covered, you know, lots of people's Mormon upbringings.

Kattie Mount [00:15:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] I'm curious to what extent there was a Tongan influence in your Utah Springville Mormon upbringing. Was it. Was it just a typical Utah Mormon upbringing? Or was. Did your dad weave. Your parents weave things in that? Whether it's foods or songs or family relations or friends. Can you. Can you talk about that at all, or.

Kattie Mount [00:16:06] Yeah, we always, like, teased my dad because we said he spoke Tonglish, because he always, like, would say things in his way, but, like, in the Tongan way, but. And then he had to, you know, translate it into English, which would. Wouldn't always translate to us.

John Dehlin [00:16:23] Can you give us some examples?

Kattie Mount [00:16:24] Oh, what are some examples? It adds the S on to almost everything.

John Dehlin [00:16:28] Give us an example.

Allan Mount [00:16:30] It's time to get ready for cherts. He says cherts.

Kattie Mount [00:16:34] It's actually kind of like he's got. His accent. Sounds a lot like Elder Uchtdorf's accent.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Interesting.

Kattie Mount [00:16:40] Yeah, it's really funny.

Allan Mount [00:16:42] And Emily has German on his side, too, right? The Wolfgangs.

Kattie Mount [00:16:45] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:16:45] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:16:46] He's. He's also German. That's where his ancestors came from.

John Dehlin [00:16:49] Cool.

Kattie Mount [00:16:50] And so he. He's a really, really spiritual man. And I would say most Polynesians are spiritual.

John Dehlin [00:16:59] What does that mean?

Kattie Mount [00:17:00] So if he would. Let's see. Normal family night dinner on a Sunday we're all sitting around, we're eating, and then we talk about what we learned at church. But then we go into detail and we tell stories and we're sitting at the table for three hours talking about our spiritual experiences.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] Really?

Kattie Mount [00:17:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] That's intense.

Kattie Mount [00:17:23] Yes. And I'm not. That's not one family dinner. That's most Sunday night family dinner.

Allan Mount [00:17:28] It's gotten more difficult as grandkids have started to pile up.

John Dehlin [00:17:32] So, like someone's talking about their spiritual experience at the table. Like what, like what kind of story?

Kattie Mount [00:17:38] Like, I mean, I don't know, just maybe, like how. Like maybe I would talk about something, some friend situation I had and how, you know, the spirit told me what I should do in that situation and then I shared it with my family. And my parents are both very spiritual, so they would both share experiences from their week and we, we would just talk about a lot of stuff. When Allan came into the family, it was really difficult because he was not used to sitting there for two to three hours at a time during a family dinner. It was very difficult just talking about, you know, all of our spiritual experiences. Right.

Allan Mount [00:18:15] Yeah, it was, it was different. I remember getting caught playing. This is before. This is a flip flown flip phone era, before the screen phones. And she's pinching me under the table because she sees that I'm playing pinball on my flip phone. And it was just very different. I didn't. I don't know if the ADHD or my, my personal upbringing, but it was like, what, we're sharing feelings here. What is happening?

Kattie Mount [00:18:36] Yeah, it was good. And my parents.

John Dehlin [00:18:37] That's cool though. That's healthy. Sharing feelings.

Kattie Mount [00:18:39] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:18:40] No, it is her father, I'll say her father is one of the most mild mannered. When you engage in a conversation, he is with you 100% and he's listening to everything. He's internalizing it. He's not quick to respond, so he really thinks about it. And that's something I've absolutely loved about her father. Her mother is a firecracker, get it done type. And in fact, when you're talking about did the Tongan upraising creep into your family life? It's her very, very white mother who, who was always the one introducing the, the Tongan flavor, the Tongan culture, making lays for graduates and, and preparing for the family reunions on the Tongan side by making all the Tongan food. And she really, really embraced the Tongan side of the family. Loves Kattie's mother.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] What are some example of Tongan Food.

Kattie Mount [00:19:33] Well, there's pork.

Allan Mount [00:19:35] Pork.

Kattie Mount [00:19:35] Pigs.

John Dehlin [00:19:36] Pig.

Kattie Mount [00:19:37] Yeah. So we had. I mean, I grew up dancing Polynesian, and so me and my sisters were always asked to dance. Like, at any big event, like, we would dance.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Is that different from what you see in Hawaii? Is there a Tongan spin to that, or is it.

Kattie Mount [00:19:53] I mean, each island has their own type of dance. And traditionally, we would just usually do like, a Tahitian number because it's the fast hips and everyone loves that, or like the slow Hawaiian number. But we did. We took dance lessons from our aunts, and then we would. We would. So my. I mean, I would say my parents tried to, like, keep us engaged in the culture as far as dancing.

Kattie Mount [00:20:19] We had a revolving door at my house. There was never a time that my parents didn't have someone living with them. So, you know, my. I don't know. I don't want to say this. I mean, I think that it was just an open door policy. So kids who were struggling at their own homes were always invited to come and live with us. We had aunts, uncles, cousins. I mean, for my whole life, we always had someone living with us. And because of that open door policy, there was a culture of we loved everyone. We invited them to eat with us. I mean, everything was always centered around food.

Kattie Mount [00:20:55] And then, you know, we always let them leave better than how they came. And I think that that's really a Polynesian. I don't know. I think that's ingrained in Polynesians, like, uplift people, basically. Yeah, yeah. You let them, you feed them, you give them money, you do whatever you can. You serve them, and then they leave better. And so that's the home that I grew up in.

John Dehlin [00:21:20] That's cool.

Kattie Mount [00:21:20] Yeah, I grew up in. And it was. I really. I mean, I can't say that I didn't have a great life. Like, my Polynesian upbringing was awesome. I will say this. I always joke that I grew up white, though.

Kattie Mount [00:21:36] I mean, until. Not until later in life that I thought I had all these influences, but we went to a normal ward. I didn't speak Tongan. My cousins lived in Salt Lake, and so we weren't around them all the time.

Kattie Mount [00:21:52] So some of the things that your Polynesian cousins. Polynesian cousins, yeah. We just weren't. And when we did see family, it was for a wedding, a funeral, this or that. We were always participating in everything that anyone had.

Kattie Mount [00:22:08] So. But other. Other than that, I mean, I grew up in a pretty white home. We ate. We didn't eat traditional Tongan Food all the time. You know, it was only during those times of family reunions. Family reunions or whatever it is, but weddings, yeah. But it was always a good time when we got together.

John Dehlin [00:22:30] So your dad works. Do you want to talk about your dad's work, what he does?

Kattie Mount [00:22:36] Probably not.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Okay. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:22:39] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:22:40] And did your parents go to college? Not go to college?

Kattie Mount [00:22:43] Yeah. My dad has a master's in. I don't even remember now. My dad has a master's, and my mom did some college, but she didn't graduate.

John Dehlin [00:22:54] Okay. And can we assume family evening, scripture study, all that family prayer?

Kattie Mount [00:23:00] Yep. I mean, really, they. They tried, right? I mean, everyone says it was. It was never consistent, honestly, but, you know, then my parents would find, like, all right, we're gonna try it again. And so they were constantly trying. Monday nights were reserved for family nights. We. Sundays, we stayed in our church clothes the entire day.

John Dehlin [00:23:23] Wow.

Kattie Mount [00:23:24] And then. Yeah, hardcore. And then we did just the normal Sunday stuff at home. Took a nap, went for a walk, made dinner together. So Sundays were always reserved for that and nothing else. Even on, like. I know some people are like, vacation Sundays. They do vacation stuff. Right? Right. No, we found the nearest church. We went to church. We would pack our food the night before so we didn't have to stop and buy food on the way home from wherever we were traveling to or from. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:59] Did you have any favorite primary songs?

Kattie Mount [00:24:02] Oh, my gosh. Put me on the spot. I have always loved. I'm Trying to be like Jesus. And I always loved. I loved to see the temple until recently

John Dehlin [00:24:14] and. Right, we'll talk about that. And as part of that, your family cohesion, but also your sister passing away, certainly. And just to remind you that families could be together forever. Yeah, Right. Was. Okay. So. So spiritually, did your parents kind of have goals for all their children? Was it like. Well, you know, with. With my sister, it was like, all my sons are serving missions, and all my children are getting married in the temple, and they're all going to go to byu. Like, you know, that sort of thing. Or not. Was there kind of like a path that they wanted for you guys?

Kattie Mount [00:24:53] I mean, I'm sure there was. They were always encouraging for us to pray and to stay close to the Lord and to make good decisions. I was the oldest, and so I think I had a lot of pressure to what? To just to be a good example.

Kattie Mount [00:25:15] And, I mean, to their credit, I was a really, really obedient kid. Always. One night I was at my friend's, and we were Having a sleepover. And I mean, we were 17 at the time and it was like one in the morning and we thought, wouldn't it be fun to like, just go get a Slurpee at 1 in the morning? We just, I mean, 17.

Kattie Mount [00:25:40] So we talked about it and then my one friend said, well, what if something happens? And I said, yeah, that would be bad if we got stranded down the street at 7:11. And that's the. We talked for a half hour about all the bad things that could happen if we left at 1 in the morning to go to 7:11.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] Because the spirit goes to bed at what time? 10 or midnight 11? Well, it depends on the time zone.

Kattie Mount [00:26:07] And I wasn't even at my house. It was at my friend's house. And. And anyway, we came up with all the reasons why or. Or shouldn't, and then we didn't go. And so that's just like the example.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] That was your rebellion.

Kattie Mount [00:26:20] Yeah, I didn't.

John Dehlin [00:26:21] Contemplating. Contemplating going at 7:11.

Allan Mount [00:26:25] That's like.

Kattie Mount [00:26:27] Allan knows I'm a person that likes rules. I like to know. I like everything laid out for me.

Allan Mount [00:26:32] Our itineraries, our for vacations are laid out hour by hour by hour every single day. We do three days at Disney, and we know exactly what rides are going on at what time next week. Her whole family's coming in town for July 4th weekend. And Kattie's the one that's organizing the itinerary. Okay. On this day, this. You're doing lunch for these people, and then we're gonna go here.

Kattie Mount [00:26:54] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:26:54] I'm sorry, that doesn't sound very talking.

Kattie Mount [00:26:56] It's. It's not.

John Dehlin [00:26:57] But not to stare.

Allan Mount [00:26:58] That's your mom. That's your mom.

Kattie Mount [00:26:59] That's. That's my mom. It is. But the. The good thing is that we always, like, don't. We always have a great time whatever we do.

Allan Mount [00:27:07] Oh, yeah. It's absolutely fantastic.

Kattie Mount [00:27:09] I'm just saying.

John Dehlin [00:27:10] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:27:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:11] I mean, let me ask you this. What was your spiritual life like as a teenager? What were you. Were you trying to figure out if the church was true or not? Getting your own light, your own testimony? Did you just always know it was true? Did you ever have any doubts? You know, were you close to Heavenly Father and the Savior? Like, talk about your spiritual life as a teenager?

Kattie Mount [00:27:33] I think because of the experience I had when I was 12 with my sister passing away, I always felt really close to God and Jesus Christ, and I always felt like I knew. I always felt prompted to do something or not to do something.

Kattie Mount [00:27:52] I always Felt spiritually close. And when I was a teen, you know, I think that you just. It's all about you. Right. And I am a super social person that's like, me to a T. So going to church and still is today, it is very much like a community thing. It's a. Oh, I get to see my friends and I get to hang out, and.

Kattie Mount [00:28:21] And that is big for me. And so I would say that in my teenage years, I mean, I love church. I loved it. And I. And I felt like the spirit when I would go, but even more so, it was the community there. I was a really social person, and I still am.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] So are you saying the social aspects of Mormonism are heavily woven interwoven into your. Your faith or your testimony or your religious.

Kattie Mount [00:28:49] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:28:49] Experience.

Kattie Mount [00:28:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] Okay.

Kattie Mount [00:28:51] Yeah. And then it wasn't until I. I went to my first year at college at uv. Uvsc. It was UVSC at the time.

John Dehlin [00:28:57] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:28:58] And that. I think that that's when I kind of thought, I need to figure this out. I want to see if this is really true. And so I remember that my bishop gave us tickets to go to the dedication of the new. What is it called?

Allan Mount [00:29:18] Palmyra. At the time, wasn't it the city.

John Dehlin [00:29:21] Provo. City Center.

Kattie Mount [00:29:22] No, no, no, no. It was the. It was downtown. It was the.

Allan Mount [00:29:25] I was in the state.

Kattie Mount [00:29:26] No, it was in Salt Lake City. You know, the Conference Center. The conference center, yes. So when I was in college, I got tickets to go to the conference center to that, and it was the dedication, and I just really had, like, a very spiritual and emotional response to that. And. And so that tabernacle Choir. Tabernacle, yeah. Everything.

John Dehlin [00:29:49] Prophets and apostles.

Kattie Mount [00:29:50] Yeah. And the hosanna. Shout.

John Dehlin [00:29:53] Yeah, shout. Wow.

Kattie Mount [00:29:55] Yeah, I just had a really strong connection to that. Yeah. So that really, like. I think that that solidified, like. Oh, yeah. You're like, this is where I want to be.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] That was like a spiritual epiphany for you.

Kattie Mount [00:30:08] It was. And then when I was 20, I actually got a job. We were going to be going to Ecuador to teach English, and it was right around that time where I could have decided to go on a mission or go to Ecuador and teach English and both. You know, I really wanted to learn Spanish, and so I thought that that was a good option.

Kattie Mount [00:30:35] And I asked my. My home teacher, who I had a crush on at the time, which probably, you know, that's what happens in college. So I asked him to come and give me a blessing because I was having a hard time deciding between going to Ecuador or turning my mission papers in.

Kattie Mount [00:30:55] And so he came over and he gave me a blessing. And it is not at all what I expected. I expected him to give me some sort of counsel about going on a mission. And instead he said, you know, your future husband is really struggling right now. He's struggling to be worthy to take you to the temple.

John Dehlin [00:31:19] It's very personal, really personal. Some random dude to be telling you, like, all about your life.

Allan Mount [00:31:28] And just.

Kattie Mount [00:31:30] I was like. So he said, yeah, your future husband is really struggling with being worthy to take you to the temple. You need to pray for him until you meet him.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] I wonder if he was projecting. I wonder if he was having problems.

Kattie Mount [00:31:47] But I was like. And so that ended. And I thought, what the heck? Well, in the back of my mind, I was, like, hoping, secretly hoping that I would end up with this guy, you know, like, maybe in the future, but.

Allan Mount [00:32:00] Well, not now that he's not temple worthy.

Kattie Mount [00:32:01] Oh, well, not. Anyway, so he. I, like, thought about it and prayed about it, and I talked to my dad, and my dad said, you know, you could go and teach English, you know, in Ecuador, or you could teach God's children his truth. Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] Yeah, I saw that coming.

Kattie Mount [00:32:23] When you put it that way. When you put it that way. And I thought, well, maybe I'll go Spanish speaking on my mission. So I decided I turned the job down, and I put my mission papers in, and I told my mom, look, I want three things. I want to go foreign, I want to go Spanish speaking, and I don't want to live in a dirt hut.

John Dehlin [00:32:48] Standards.

Allan Mount [00:32:49] She had some demands, I had some

Kattie Mount [00:32:51] demands, and Barcelona, Spain.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Oh. So the Lord answered your prayers. Check.

Kattie Mount [00:32:57] Check. Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:59] It was fun.

Kattie Mount [00:32:59] Everything I. I wanted and more so fun. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:03] Okay. How was your mission?

Kattie Mount [00:33:05] It was incredible. Maybe we'll. We'll get to it later, but that's where Allan and I met.

John Dehlin [00:33:09] Oh, okay.

Kattie Mount [00:33:10] We met in the mtc.

John Dehlin [00:33:12] Okay. Okay.

Kattie Mount [00:33:13] And we served in the same mission, but.

John Dehlin [00:33:16] Oh, got it. Okay. That's where you met.

Kattie Mount [00:33:18] Yeah. Which also, I think complicates our story a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:33:22] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Anything else you want to tell about your story up until the mission, before we switch over to Allan, Any important kind of like instrumental pillar life experiences that you think are really important? Understanding the faith, the mixed faith, marriage journey.

Kattie Mount [00:33:40] I think we touched on it, really. Like the home that I grew up in has. And the Polynesian and the spiritual, and all of those are interwoven with each other.

John Dehlin [00:33:51] When you. When you envisioned who you might Marry, how you might get married. Did you have kind of a dream or a vision of who it would be and how that marriage would be?

Kattie Mount [00:34:01] I think I had a Disney ideal. Right. It was. And, you know, gosh, I look back and I think, I hope they never do this with my daughter, but they would have. I remember getting a journal and having they asked us, write down all of the things you would want in your husband and what you think he'll be like and write him letters. So I literally, when we got engaged, I handed him a journal that I had kept through my teenage years of a list of everything I wanted.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] What was that?

Kattie Mount [00:34:35] Oh, my gosh. I always was attracted to tall guys, so I wanted someone who was tall and I wanted someone athletic, and I got both. And then, you know, just the very surface kind. Funny. I mean, all those. Yes. Spiritual. I mean, just all those things that you just think are so important for one man to have.

John Dehlin [00:34:58] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:34:59] And it's realistic.

Allan Mount [00:35:01] Right.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] No pressure.

Kattie Mount [00:35:02] No pressure at all. And so, yeah, I definitely built up ideals about what my husband should be and what he would be and how we would have a. You know, live our life and. But it's. It's. You don't know any better. You're a teenager.

John Dehlin [00:35:18] Well, you're acting like that's bad. Like that's normal. It's pretty normal. It's normal to have these hips and dreams and expectations.

Kattie Mount [00:35:24] I definitely was like the Disney princess looking for my Prince Charming.

John Dehlin [00:35:28] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:35:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:29] All right. All right. That tees up, Allan. Thank you, Kattie, for. For sharing.

Kattie Mount [00:35:35] Yeah, you're welcome.

Allan Mount [00:35:36] I learned a few things. That was good.

John Dehlin [00:35:37] All right, you're talking.

Allan Mount [00:35:39] No, I'm just kidding. Oh, that's great. Well, I'm as white European as they come, so there's no fun ethnicity, background. My mom is half Scottish, so I grew up. Or my mom is full Scottish, rather. I grew up in Santa Barbara, California. Didn't move to Utah until 2004. So most of. Most of my life has been in California. I'm approaching the time where I've been in Utah as long as I was in California.

Kattie Mount [00:36:04] Start calling him a Utahn.

Allan Mount [00:36:05] And that's. That's. That's a sore subject. We're going to have to move to California.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] As a Texan, I get it, right.

Allan Mount [00:36:11] That's right. But I'm the youngest of six children. My. My parents met in Anaheim, California, at a steak dance.

John Dehlin [00:36:19] Nice.

Allan Mount [00:36:20] My mom was not a member at the time, so she was. I'm going to get some of the ages mismatched. Here a little bit. But she was 18, 17, 18 years old when she met my dad.

John Dehlin [00:36:29] Around what year was this?

Allan Mount [00:36:30] This was in like 1966 or 67. Whoa. So, yeah, being the youngest of six, she's the oldest. So Beatles, the Beach Boys. Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:36:41] Pre Woodstock.

Allan Mount [00:36:43] Yeah. Whenever I hear the Beach Boys, I think my dad, he, he dedicated a song, Try to See It My way, that song by the Beatles.

John Dehlin [00:36:51] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:36:52] To my mother on the, on the radio one day because, yeah, we can work it out. Because she was deciding whether or not she wanted to stay with him. And she, he's like, I'll show her with the Beatles song.

Allan Mount [00:37:04] That's right. It's a great song. So they met at this steak dance because my mom's friend invited her and my mom was, was a comfort because of that. So my dad kind of rewinding a little bit. When he was 12 years old, he had never, maybe he had been to church, but it wasn't part of their everyday life. And he got a knock on the door and it was his little league coach. And his little league coach said, hey, Jimmy D, I'm your home teacher. And he goes, what's that? I don't know what that is. And I don't know if his parents were in the background going, oh boy, I don't know what's happening here.

Allan Mount [00:37:41] But he ended up explaining that and that's how he was reactivated and baptized. My father has two sisters who still live in California, so we have a built in support system. When we go to Disneyland, Kattie, that'll come out. But Kattie is a big time Disney fan and so we go to California often and, and one of my aunts lives right next to Disneyland, so it's easy to go visit. So that's about two hours away. A little over two hours away from Santa Barbara where I grew up. And Santa Barbara's known for just the greatest weather on earth. That in San Diego we kind of have fistfights over it. But Christmas Day at 75 degrees, middle of July, it's also 75 degrees, so it's quite beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:38:24] Wow.

Allan's LDS Upbringing and Sports Life

Allan Mount [00:38:27] Very normal. Not when I say normal, I have to kind of qualify what that means, but very normal. LDS upbringing. I knew nothing else than the LDS church. And things were not the same as far as the vocal spirituality on Kattie's side, but we certainly were. We never missed church. We watched conference when it was on, we went to state conference. Novel idea. And very active in, in young men's and scouts, everything up through the ages. Eagle Scout. There was a rule in My house, you have to get your eagle before you get your driver's license. And I got my driver's license on my 17th birthday, so I delayed that a little bit.

Allan Mount [00:39:09] But that matched up well because I wasn't ready to get my eagle yet. So I got my eagle and then was able to get my driver's license. But being the youngest of six, six children, there's three boys, three girls. I saw my, my closest sibling is four years older than me. So I saw my oldest sibling go on a mission. My brother Jason. Today's his 50th birthday actually, so happy birthday, Jason. He won't be watching this, but I'll send him a link, so maybe he will.

John Dehlin [00:39:35] I'm 49, so we're almost.

Allan Mount [00:39:36] There you go. So you're my older brother. And I watched a sister go on a mission. My closest brother, who again, four years younger. We didn't become friends until we went to the same college. So that was interesting. But seeing all of my siblings, when they ended up getting married, there was a, there was a formula and it was meet someone that is not a member, they get baptized. Oh, and then you take them to the temple a year later. And that, that was, that was what my oldest brother did. That's what my second sibling, my sister did and also one of my other sisters.

Allan Mount [00:40:18] And the, the one to break the mold was my closest brother, Cameron, who married a girl that I graduated high school with, who we were friends with forever. She would still claim that he converted her because he kind of pulled her back into the church.

Allan Mount [00:40:33] Not that she had ever left, but I grew up my entire life thinking, well, that's just what I'm going to do. So I never dated anyone lds. A couple of dates here or there, first dates of girls in the ward. But other than that, it was, it was. I purposefully chose non LDs girls to date because that's just how I thought that things were going to work out.

Allan Mount [00:40:57] But you know, I grew up in a very, a very sports oriented family. My, my, I'm six foot seven. My dad was six foot eight and my two brothers are six foot nine and six foot ten.

John Dehlin [00:41:07] Whoa.

Allan Mount [00:41:08] My oldest brother, six foot ten, he has a son who is seven feet.

John Dehlin [00:41:11] Oh my goodness.

Allan Mount [00:41:12] Just an enormous dude. And he married this little 4 foot 11 girl a couple of years ago. And it's hilarious. So it's very interesting to see what their kids are gonna be like.

John Dehlin [00:41:26] The California high school sports scene is pretty intense. Basketball, volleyball. Were you into that stuff?

Allan Mount [00:41:33] Yeah, I was. So I played three Sports in high school. I, I, my first love is baseball, but I didn't end up playing in high school because by the time I was a freshman in high school, I was 6 foot 5. And that was basically, you have to be a pitcher or a first baseman. And I was a first baseman. But my next closest brother convinced me to try volleyball. And right off the bat I could tell that having never played volleyball before, that that was going to work out. It was just the height I had lived around it. Of my six sibling or five siblings before I got to high school, four out of five played Division 1 volleyball in college. So that was a big part of my life ever since I was eight when my oldest brother played at UC Santa Barbara.

John Dehlin [00:42:18] That's a big deal.

Allan Mount [00:42:19] Was a, was the leading blocker in the nation. Just a huge, huge guy. And then he went to medical school. He's so successful. Makes me sick, this guy.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] I already hate this guy.

Allan Mount [00:42:27] And he's so nice. You can't even hate.

John Dehlin [00:42:29] I hate him worse.

Allan Mount [00:42:30] He's the worst. I know. So tried volleyball out. Loved it. Played basketball as well until my senior year. I had some knee issues going into my senior year. And so the advice for my doctor was play volleyball and nothing else because volleyball was my ticket to college. I wasn't a, A student. I was like a, a and a half or b and a half, 3.5 student. And so I needed volleyball to help me get into a good college. So I, I played real a lot. One interesting fun anecdote is I played club volleyball. So in Utah there is no boys volleyball in high school. In California there is and it's quite popular.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] Not beach, it's, it's actually, it's indoor.

Allan Mount [00:43:11] Yeah, indoor, six on six. So I played, I played indoor six on six volleyball in high school, but if you want to go to college, you had to play club. So played club volleyball and club volleyball had practices on Monday and Wednesday. So family home evening and mutual at the time. And then tournaments were on Sunday. And so my mom called, called club volleyball Satan's sport because it completely tore us out of these, these weekly activities for church.

John Dehlin [00:43:39] Oh, no.

Allan Mount [00:43:40] And she said it kind of lovingly in jest, but halfway a little bit serious. And it worked. I ended up going to UCLA and playing volleyball there before, before my mission.

John Dehlin [00:43:51] What? But you played volleyball at ucla?

Allan Mount [00:43:55] Played, I practice.

John Dehlin [00:43:56] Big deal.

Allan Mount [00:43:57] I practice hard.

John Dehlin [00:43:58] That's a big deal.

Allan Mount [00:44:00] My older brother, who's closest to me, who's four years older, because of the mission, we ended up overlapping and he Played at UCLA as well. So I remember my very first. And we're going to be skipping back and forth because there's some things in my teenage years we should talk about. But my first class at ucla, I was able to sit next to my brother first practice. Of course, I'm he at practice. He didn't want to acknowledge me. And he may be watching right now. And so maybe he can. Sorry, you don't have a microphone to dispute this. But. But in class he was awesome. And we were able to sit next to each other. Sociology. And it felt cool. Like I had this big brother to protect me at college my first day.

John Dehlin [00:44:39] So cool.

Allan Mount [00:44:39] Then at practice he was. He was really good at Bible. I mean, really good at volleyball. All American status. Good at volleyball. They had won the championship the year before and. And he was a key part of that championship. He was a starter for that team.

John Dehlin [00:44:56] BYU had a decent volleyball.

Allan Mount [00:44:58] They did program at the time.

John Dehlin [00:44:59] Right.

Allan Mount [00:44:59] And that. That actually plays into my story.

John Dehlin [00:45:02] Okay. Okay. I have to ask. Does the name Michael Smith mean anything to you?

Allan Mount [00:45:07] It rings a bell.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] When I was a freshman at BYU, there was this like 6 foot 10 basketball player who was from California.

Allan Mount [00:45:13] Oh.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] He had been like star quarterback on his high school team, star center on his basketball team, star volleyball player. Ended up playing for the Celtics. But it kind of reminds me of that California multi sport, super tall Mormon kid.

Allan Mount [00:45:29] Right.

John Dehlin [00:45:30] But that doesn't mean anything to you?

Allan Mount [00:45:31] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:45:31] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:45:32] I love Michael. He's the greatest. I don't know who he is, but he sounds fantastic.

Kattie Mount [00:45:37] All right.

John Dehlin [00:45:37] Okay. So. So. So I'm tracking. Okay. So super sports.

Allan Mount [00:45:41] Yeah, super sports.

John Dehlin [00:45:42] Volleyball. Ucla.

Allan Mount [00:45:44] Exactly. I played water polo for a couple years because it was something to do and I absolutely loved it. I couldn't really swim that well, which made it interesting. So our. Our home. Our home pool had a shallow end, which means. Which isn't standard in a water polo match. So this. The goalie could stand up, but the goal was twice as big. And so I would. I'm not sure if the camera can see. In water polo you have to kind of do this. And I earned the nickname in the school newspaper. Not the school newspaper, the Santa Barbara News Press of the Spruce Goose. And that nickname has stuck with me.

John Dehlin [00:46:17] That's the airplane that Howard Hughes flew.

Allan Mount [00:46:20] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:46:21] Because it was super huge.

Allan Mount [00:46:22] Super huge. So I would do this. And my best friends from California still call me Goose because of that.

John Dehlin [00:46:28] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:46:28] Anyway, Goose. Just a fun little thing.

John Dehlin [00:46:30] Call Allan Goose next time. Goose. Goose.

Allan Mount [00:46:32] Or anything that rhymes with goose. Goose, Moose. Loose, Goose, Loose. Whoa. Loose goose.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] That was like. That was my big talk about.

Allan Mount [00:46:41] Yeah, so I mean, we can go back to some of the teenage years of just kind of what the church meant.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] Yeah, let's do that.

Allan Mount [00:46:49] Meant to me it was.

John Dehlin [00:46:51] Were your parents like all active serving callings?

Allan Mount [00:46:55] Yep.

Kattie Mount [00:46:56] His dad was the bishop.

Allan Mount [00:46:57] My dad was bishop when I was born, so I don't have memories of him as bishop. Okay, but. But he was the bishop when I was born and I have a memory when I was 8 years old in primary and I still remember walking out of primary and telling my mom this of basically my first memory of. I just felt the spirit. It was the song, not I Know My Redeemer Lives. What's the primary song that is similar to the I Know My Redeemer Lives.

Kattie Mount [00:47:26] I know my Teach Me to Walk in the Light.

Allan Mount [00:47:28] No, I can't remember it.

John Dehlin [00:47:31] What do you ask?

Allan Mount [00:47:32] There's a primary song that is, that talks about Christ. Do you know which one that is? No, it's. It's the, the adult version basically is I Know My Redeemer Lives, but Teach Me to Walk. No, no, I can't remember what it is.

John Dehlin [00:47:48] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:47:48] But anyway, I, I remember hearing that song and singing it and, and feeling that love and telling my mom on the way out to the car and I didn't know how big of a deal that was going to be for her when I told her that. But walking out, I was a very difficult child, John. I was. I'm extroverted now. Imagine that in a four year old body. All over the place. Oh yeah, everywhere. That's right. I don't think I was bad. I would defend myself in that respect. She's heard stories.

Kattie Mount [00:48:16] His family would say yes, but I was very active.

Allan Mount [00:48:19] Got into trouble because of that sometimes.

John Dehlin [00:48:20] Yeah, yeah. So when I walked, sitting still.

Allan Mount [00:48:23] Exactly. This is the longest I've sat without fidgeting my legs in a long time. I'm doing my best, but as I walked out, I kind of turned to my mom and said, you know, when we sang that, that song, I really felt. I really felt love inside of me and I really felt the spirit. I don't know, I'm probably attributing my words to someone a little bit older than that. But I explained it to her and she like stopped walking, got on her knee, just turned to me and gave me a big kiss and a big hug and she said, that is so special. That's a very, very special experience.

Allan Mount [00:48:54] That's so great. I'm so proud of you. I love you. And very. My mom is to this day is just such a kind hearted, just a rock. And she was the person that always. I always felt safe to be able to tell anything. So when in the dorms at college, for example, I fell asleep with another girl from the dorms. Had fallen asleep watching the Simpsons in my dorm.

Allan Mount [00:49:24] No romantic interest in this person whatsoever. She wakes up at 7 in the morning and says, oh, I've got to go to class. My Mormon brain is going, I just spent the night with a girl. What's the first thing that you do in that situation as an 18 year old? You don't call your mom. But that's what I did. I called my mom and I was like, oh my gosh, mom, guess what just happened?

Allan Mount [00:49:44] This girl just fell asleep in my bed. Like that's, that's the kind of woman that I had as a mother. Just someone that I really felt comfortable going to.

John Dehlin [00:49:52] That's what you want as a parent? Is your kid feeling comfortable talking to you? That's the holy grail.

Allan Mount [00:49:57] Not that I didn't hide things there were. You don't tell them everything but, but I always felt safe going to her. My dad, very red personality. If you took the color code test back in the 90s, out of the 45 questions, he's like 41 red. So he's an alpha male.

Allan Mount [00:50:14] Very. He's the bread earner. He, he goes to work. The way that he opens the door, coming home from work, coming into the house, you know that it's him because that doorknob is being opened with authority. He was a very hard worker, very extroverted.

Allan Mount [00:50:31] You know the Ward talent show. He's the one dressing up as the one eyed purple people eater and we're all dancing behind him. Yeah, so that's right. So he literally dressed up in a tutu and he's 6 foot 8 and was previously the bishop recently. So he's, he was a fun loving, very hard working, assertive red personality type.

Allan Mount [00:50:53] So growing up in that household, I felt nothing but love. It was a great, great household. We were Lakers fans, we were Dodgers fans. The only thing.

John Dehlin [00:51:02] Oh wait, does, does Scott Purvis know that you're a Dodgers fan? I think I tagged him on a post you made recently.

Allan Mount [00:51:07] Oh, is he.

John Dehlin [00:51:08] Scott Purvis is a Giants fan and he hates all Dodgers.

Allan Mount [00:51:11] Okay, well, Scott, we're going to have to talk. I'll just say this. Go to the standings of the National League West.

Kattie Mount [00:51:18] Oh gosh.

Allan Mount [00:51:18] We'll just let that speak for itself? No. Yeah. I mean, when I say Dodgers fan, I just live Dodgers. I've got the, you know, Cody Ballinger is on my home screen. Love the Dodgers. But on Sundays, the only. Go ahead.

Kattie Mount [00:51:32] Yeah. This is the funny thing is Allan in his house. The only thing they could watch on Sunday were Laker games.

Allan Mount [00:51:39] We could sit down as a family and watch the Lakers. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:51:42] Was this Magic?

Allan Mount [00:51:43] This is the Magic. Kareem Byron Scott, James Worthy. Yeah. Vlade Divac towards the end of that run, Kurt Rambis. Kurt Rambis.

John Dehlin [00:51:51] Oh, those were the days.

Allan Mount [00:51:52] Those were the days, man.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] So you hated the Celtics.

Allan Mount [00:51:54] The Lakeshore hated the Celtics.

John Dehlin [00:51:55] See, that's where you and I could. We were both six sixes. You know, we were both basketball. I was a Larry Bird fan. And the Celtics.

Allan Mount [00:52:02] Right.

John Dehlin [00:52:02] But I love the Lakers. Well, yeah, I mean, come on, Magic

Allan Mount [00:52:05] Johnson, you know, as a kid, you. You kind of grab on to what your. Your dad loves as far as sports goes. And he was a die hard Lakers fan. So I loved all things Magic Johnson. Hated all things Celtics.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:52:18] And on Sundays, if the Lakers were on, we would watch it. We were not allowed to watch movies together on Sundays, but a sports game, that's great. So when we get married and I turn on the Lakers game, she says, well, we can't watch sports on Sundays, but we can turn on a movie. And I go, well, no, we can't turn on a movie, but we can watch movies. That was kind of our first. I mean, every marriage is a mixed faith marriage. So right from the get go, from day probably three of our marriage, we realized, oh, we were raised even in insignificant ways, very differently.

John Dehlin [00:52:50] Okay, real quick. Was there anything else about your teen years you want to cover though? Just.

Allan Mount [00:52:54] Yeah, you know, I think I will.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] By the way, Anthony asks if. If the song is I Know My Father Lives.

Kattie Mount [00:53:01] It's not.

John Dehlin [00:53:02] Is it I Believe in Christ? Nope. Jesus Was no Ordinary Man. Is that.

Allan Mount [00:53:06] It was an ordinary man.

John Dehlin [00:53:07] Charlene Curtis gets the prize.

Allan Mount [00:53:09] Oh, Charlene. That's my sister. That's my sister, Charlie Mount.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] Curtis. Curtis. Yes. Jesus Was an Ordinary Man. Now that's a Jaz Cat Perry song.

Allan Mount [00:53:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:18] I don't think that's in the children's.

Kattie Mount [00:53:19] It's not in the children's hymn book.

Allan Mount [00:53:20] Well, we sing It Was no Ordinary Man. Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:53:25] Maybe this should be a karaoke interview.

Allan Mount [00:53:27] We got to do a primary. Primary songs. Karaoke. Let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:53:31] I do that.

Allan Mount [00:53:31] That'd be great. Yeah, that was the song. So that song still holds. I Don't then it's not even in the, in the LDS app then. No, no, because. Yeah, I mean we'll, yeah, it's easy to skip ahead, but there's a lot of, a lot of things we could talk about with the hymns and our children wanting to hear them and all that fun stuff.

Teen Spirituality and Early Faith Questions

John Dehlin [00:53:48] So as a teen did you go to seminary?

Allan Mount [00:53:51] Yeah, four years.

John Dehlin [00:53:52] Seminary was the Bruce R. McConkie kind of dog thick doctrine or not?

Allan Mount [00:53:56] I don't think so. I think we were a little young for that. So I graduated in year 2000 from seminary and high school. You're a little baby, 37 years old. So yeah, class of 2000. So I don't think Bruce Armacock, I mean Mormon doctrine was in our house. The book was in our house, still in my parents house.

John Dehlin [00:54:14] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:54:15] But I don't think that was, I mean there was a little bit of the whole playing cards maybe aren't the best. My older brother in the early 80s was told he shouldn't be playing Dungeons and Dragons because it's a little satanic, that kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:54:29] So what was your spiritual life like as a teenager? So, and were you, did you have any kind of confrontations with word of wisdom or law of chastity stuff that was important to you?

Allan Mount [00:54:41] Yes. Okay, Word of wisdom. No, that, that was never, never any issue at all. The, the law of chastity with, with some of the girlfriends that I held that literally held that that ended up being, being something that I had to talk to bishops about and something that, until I started going through that dark night of the soul and really started looking inward into my Mormon upbringing during my rabbit hole phase, I just, my teenage years were exactly what I expected them to be. So when I'm going and talking to the bishop, the things, the questions that he's asking, the things that he's saying to me, I'm just thinking this is how it is, you know, to get, I'll be as specific as I can without breaking confidences.

Allan Mount [00:55:35] But going in and telling him about, hey, I have this girlfriend and some things have happened that shouldn't have happened. He asked questions that now I look at and just go, oh my gosh, these are things I, especially as a parent, our oldest is 13, I, I would be just livid.

John Dehlin [00:55:53] So he was asking detailed questions, very

Allan Mount [00:55:55] detailed questions that were, have nothing to do with what he should be asking.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] And without you having to say it, I'll just fill in the blanks for my experience. You know, bishops can ask things like did you orgasm did she orgasm? Did you enjoy it? Did she enjoy it? Where did you touch her? Inside the clothes, outside the clothes? Where does she touch you?

John Dehlin [00:56:18] On and on and on. And one is just the concern about boundaries and teaching kids and adults proper boundaries about what is and isn't appropriate to talk about to a child. But also there's always this weird concern about is it possible he's getting gratification from this? And that may seem mind blowing to a believing orthodox Mormon, but from a lot of the especially women I've talked to, sometimes that is a thing where it's almost like there's this weird, twisted personal interest that the, or fascination or morbidity or curiosity that a leader may have.

John Dehlin [00:56:57] And then most importantly, it just can be very shaming and toxic in terms of the messages that sends around sexuality. Did I miss. No, that's kind of a summary and I'm not trying to be negative. I'm just trying to talk about why this is for those who are newer

Allan Mount [00:57:12] or haven't heard all of those questions.

John Dehlin [00:57:14] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:57:14] Yeah, literally all those questions were asked and more this is when I was 16 years old that that happened the first time. And, and how does it make you,

John Dehlin [00:57:26] how did you feel?

Allan Mount [00:57:26] Well, I felt in a Mormon context

John Dehlin [00:57:28] it can be just like, well, that's, yeah, they're allowed to ask those questions. And that's.

Allan Mount [00:57:32] Well, I, I really felt like I got to get better with. I broke up with my girlfriend. Yeah, I got to get. It was, it was on me. I've got to make sure that I, that I fix this.

Allan Mount [00:57:41] He's told me I shouldn't take the sacrament. So now, now what do I do with. That's, you know, sitting in front of my parents. And what does that feel like? Well, it, I think the first few Sundays I, I grabbed the bread and just pretended pocketed it because I was like, I don't want my parents to know what's going on here.

Allan Mount [00:58:00] And you know, to add insult to injury or add awkwardness to the situation, my bishop at the time, who honestly I don't feel fits that description, I don't feel fits the description of he's getting any kind of pleasure asking these questions. I felt like that he just feels like that's what he was supposed to do. So when he's asking me these questions, the awkward part is that he was very good friends with my father. And I would go home from volleyball practice and here's the bishops in my home with my dad hanging out and hey, do you want to play basketball? And so I'm having these conversations with him privately and then publicly he's at my house hanging out with my dad.

Allan Mount [00:58:42] That was a little bit awkward. It was a little bit. I wouldn't call it traumatizing. It was just an interesting situation. When I was 17, we went to New York to pick my brother up from his mission who served. Cameron served in New York, New York, South Brooklyn, Queens, that area. And we drove up and went to Palmyra and did the church history tour in Palmyra. And I still have the journal where I wrote down. I've got a sticker to Joseph Smith in the journal, wrote down my experience. Just kind of pondering and praying about his experience in the Grove.

Allan Mount [00:59:16] So that was. That was pretty formative. Moving into my college years, and this is where our stories intertwine a little bit, is when I was at ucla, the chastity issues surfaced themselves once again.

John Dehlin [00:59:33] And yeah, because I've been on that campus and like, right, everyone's beautiful co ed dorms.

Allan Mount [00:59:41] It's 75 degrees every day.

John Dehlin [00:59:43] And like in California, female attire or male attire is beach attire. Right.

Allan Mount [00:59:50] Well. And you're 18 years old.

John Dehlin [00:59:51] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:59:51] And so, you know, the. What? A few things happened. I didn't feel great about them, but I didn't tell anybody about it. And one night when all of the rest of the volleyball team was out drinking and partying, which I literally never did once I was sitting in my room and I just didn't feel right about something. So I opened the Doctrine and Covenants. For whatever reason, that's what I chose. And I read the first 50 sections and it took three or four hours.

John Dehlin [01:00:20] Whoa.

Allan Mount [01:00:21] I get to section 50 and I'm like, well, that's a good even number. I'm going to stop. But I jumped on my knees and started praying and I just felt this overwhelming guilt of, you have some things you need to talk to the bishop about. And I had already received my mission call at this point, and my mission call was to Barcelona, Spain. August 29, 2002, or 2001 was my original call date. So I went into my bishop the next day and talked to him. I had no expectation. I didn't think of the consequences. It was just. I knew I had to do it. So I went and talked to him and he said, well, shoot, this is. This is right as they were raising the bar.

John Dehlin [01:01:02] I remember that.

Allan Mount [01:01:03] So he went and talked to the stake president who called me in. He guilted me a bit about, you know, you kept this from us. You knew about this and you didn't say anything. How long has it been? He asked me all these questions, and it was basically like, look, you can't. I have to call church headquarters. That's how serious this is.

John Dehlin [01:01:20] Yeah. At least back in the day, if you had actual intercourse, a general authority had to approve you going on a mission. That's my memory.

Allan Mount [01:01:27] Right.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] And I'm not trying to project that onto you. I'm just filling in what I remember.

Allan Mount [01:01:31] No. Yeah. So I kind of waited for the verdict, and when I got called back into the office with them, the stake president told me. Told me. I spoke personally about you to Elder Ballard, who was over the missionary program at the time. That's intense. And I'm like, oh. And what Elder Ballard needs you to know is that he gave me the next to murder line. And more than.

John Dehlin [01:02:00] Wait. Say it. Say it.

Allan Mount [01:02:01] Yeah. So the only thing worse than what you did is.

John Dehlin [01:02:05] Meaning premarital sex is murder.

Allan Mount [01:02:07] And here's the thing. There wasn't premarital sex. There wasn't vaginal intercourse.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] Okay? So it was petty. Heavy, petty.

Allan Mount [01:02:14] And that's where.

John Dehlin [01:02:15] As we call it.

Allan Mount [01:02:15] And that's where the next line came in. He said. He said, what you did is actually worse than full intercourse because what you did has no procreational value. And what you did is purely for pressure or for pleasure, rather. And that's some weird logic. And again, at the time, I'm thinking, this is what I got to do. Like, yeah, I earned this. I deserve this. I've got to fix this. And, John, I'll be honest. When I walked out of their office and they told me, like, you're going to have to resubmit your papers in a number of months. You're not going to be leaving on August 29th.

Allan Mount [01:02:50] I felt awesome. I felt awesome. In fact, the LDS girl who fell asleep, and it wasn't this girl, by the way, she was the one that gave me a ride. The girl that fell asleep on my bed to the Simpsons is the one that gave me a ride to the interview. So when I walked out of the office and into her car, she could see how happy I was. And she's like, oh, great, you get to go. And I said, no, I don't. But it's just like. It's just this. This burden is off of my shoulders.

John Dehlin [01:03:19] The guilt and the shame is lifted, and you've come clean.

Allan Mount [01:03:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] You're atone. You know, you're. You're kind of taking advantage of the atonement, and you're becoming purified.

Allan Mount [01:03:29] Right Right. It just, it felt like the right thing to do. So I was, I'm going to be able to go into the mission field without any of this burdening me down. I'm going to be a worthy vessel, the spirit. Right?

Missions in Spain and Spiritual Experiences

John Dehlin [01:03:38] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:03:39] The next few months were the most challenging part. I mean, I had to go home and tell my parents. That was. I mean, my mom was a mess, my dad was mad. Of course, August 29th then creeps along and all of a sudden people are asking like, aren't you supposed to be in the mtc? And, well, I'm taking care of a few things and everybody knows what that means and, or assumes that to know what that means. And in my case, they were right. And so when May 8, 2002 came along, I was, I was ready and I was excited. And we, I walk into the MTC and that's the day that we met was May 8, 2002.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] I just have to editorialize a bit like in 2019 with the Sam Young stuff and protect LDS children and all this me too stuff. You know, it's easy for us to get all angry or spiritual spun up or negative about kind of that whole scenario you just painted. And I went through some minor petting where I didn't take the sacrament for a couple weeks. And there's a part of me that actually remembers that very fondly. Like, it's getting righteous, it's getting pure, it's becoming committed. It's learning to self mastery or self discipline or sacrificing for a higher cause, overcoming the natural man, becoming a man of God. And I like, there's a part of me that's like, that's good stuff.

Allan Mount [01:05:00] Right? Right.

John Dehlin [01:05:01] Do you think of it that way at all?

Allan Mount [01:05:02] No, I do.

John Dehlin [01:05:03] Ambivalent about that.

Allan Mount [01:05:04] No, I do. And actually, you know, speaking with Natasha Helfer Parker, she's helped me see this as well. But there's so much good, there's so many good teachings that are interwoven with some of the shame and guilt. It's like, man, if I could extract some of this guilt and shame. Now that's one of the key gifts of a mixed faith marriage is being able to say, man, there are really good things here.

John Dehlin [01:05:27] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:05:27] Now let's just pull out the guilt and shame and teach the kids the good stuff.

John Dehlin [01:05:30] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:05:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:31] But wasn't it an amazing upbringing? Like Mormon, my Mormon upbringing, Isn't it fabulous?

Allan Mount [01:05:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] It's just the community and the songs and the leaders and the activities and the standards and the identity and the confidence and the exceptionalism. It felt wonderful to me.

Allan Mount [01:05:50] No, it did to me, too, being in.

John Dehlin [01:05:52] That was true in Springville.

Kattie Mount [01:05:54] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:54] And that was true in Barbara. It was true in Katy, Texas.

Allan Mount [01:05:58] Right. You know, especially for an extremely extroverted person.

John Dehlin [01:06:03] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:06:03] Who liked to be the odd. I mean, I'm. I'm super tall. You can't get away from it, so everyone notices you. I mean, I love.

John Dehlin [01:06:10] You're pretty tall. You're pretty tall tall.

Allan Mount [01:06:11] I'm not. I haven't reached super tall.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] You're tall.

Allan Mount [01:06:15] I think in her list of characteristics for a husband, it said 6 foot 8 or more, so I didn't quite. Oh, so you felt she had to negotiate. I'm just kidding.

Kattie Mount [01:06:24] My parents are like 5 foot 9, so anything over 6 foot was good in my life.

John Dehlin [01:06:30] Isn't that tall for tongas? 5 9. No.

Kattie Mount [01:06:33] I have some really large cousins.

John Dehlin [01:06:35] Okay. Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

Allan Mount [01:06:37] They get big both ways.

John Dehlin [01:06:37] Offensive line.

Kattie Mount [01:06:38] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:06:39] That's right.

Allan Mount [01:06:40] You know, John, I think one. One last thing I would share is I did have my Moroni's promise moment.

John Dehlin [01:06:46] Oh, yeah. Where I was gonna ask you that.

Allan Mount [01:06:48] Yeah. So I. It was about. I was 15 or 16, and I was reading in the Book of Mormon. It was probably close to a youth conference where they challenge all of us to do this. And. And I remember it was in the balcony room in the Santa Barbara house for anyone that has been to that house, like, two people. And I remember getting on my knees and saying that prayer of just, is this true? And the thought that I.

Allan Mount [01:07:13] The thought and feeling that I got was, are you stupid? You've always known that this is true. And I kind of unceremoniously went, oh, okay, and got off my knees. And that was it. That was the experience. And the funny thing is, listening to some interviews, I've heard people with the same exact thought. So I don't know if it's the teenage mind or, you know, on the faithful side, it's. God speaks to you in ways that are going to impact you the most. It's different for every person in different stages of life. But that was the experience that I had. It was. You know, it's true. Don't be stupid.

John Dehlin [01:07:45] Was that a thought or a feeling or both?

Allan Mount [01:07:47] It was both. It was both came to my mind. And then it was that moment of realizing, oh, it is true. Okay, great.

John Dehlin [01:07:54] And I know I would have heard other people bear their testimony and say that. So I don't think I or you or we necessarily would have come up that out of nowhere.

Allan Mount [01:08:04] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] Because that was a common thing someone would say when they were recounting how they gained their testimony.

Allan Mount [01:08:10] It just seems like an interesting thing for God to tell you. Are you stupid?

John Dehlin [01:08:15] You've always known, right?

Allan Mount [01:08:16] You've always known.

John Dehlin [01:08:17] If I've always known, why was I asked?

Allan Mount [01:08:18] It was. It certainly wasn't expected at the time. I wasn't expecting that to be the. To be the message.

John Dehlin [01:08:23] But you got an answer.

Allan Mount [01:08:24] Yeah, I did.

John Dehlin [01:08:25] It was satisfied you.

Allan Mount [01:08:26] Right?

John Dehlin [01:08:27] Yeah. I never. I never got that answer. So I was just always like, what's wrong with me? I keep trying, I'll keep working harder.

Allan Mount [01:08:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:34] Because I. I was really, for somehow very conscious about. Now, was that me or is that God? And there was never an answer. I got where I could say for sure it was God and not my own brain.

Allan Mount [01:08:43] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] And I really wanted, you know, for me, honesty mattered. So I didn't want to fool myself because that didn't feel honest.

Allan Mount [01:08:50] Yeah. So that was all over my head. Those thoughts never, ever occurred to me.

John Dehlin [01:08:55] That's awesome. Okay, so you got your witness. And so you. And then you had your kind of. And I'm sure you identified with either Nephi or Joseph Smith, some of those things in the Doctrine and Covenants, like a wretched man that I am and

Allan Mount [01:09:09] Korihor that he was. He was my idol. I'm just kidding.

John Dehlin [01:09:12] No, no, but I mean, you had your kind of sins, but then you repented and you had your. Whether it's Saul, Paul, or Alma the Younger, it's sort of like you made good. You had that exalted moment where you became a righteous soldier of truth. Right.

Allan Mount [01:09:31] His righteousness. It could be John. I tried.

John Dehlin [01:09:35] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:09:35] You know, going into. Going into the empty scene. We've already heard part of Kattie's story with her, with her blessing. I think this is a good transition into the next stage of our relationship. But part of my repentance process, one of the messages that was given to me is, even though you're repenting of these sins, while they will be forgiven of you, the sins cause you to lose opportunities you cannot regain. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever heard that, but that was a message leadership gave to me, that when you repent of a sin, the sin. That doesn't mean you're going to be completely better off than before. There are things that. Opportunities that will not be given to you because of that sin. So going into the MTC and meeting Kattie on day one, and you met

John Dehlin [01:10:30] her day one of the mtc.

Kattie Mount [01:10:31] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:10:31] We were in the same district. Whoa.

John Dehlin [01:10:34] District love.

Kattie Mount [01:10:34] He was my district leader. District.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] District love.

Allan Mount [01:10:37] District love. That. Very quickly, before we went out of the mtc, Kattie told me pieces of the blessing, didn't say that it had anything to do with marriage.

Kattie Mount [01:10:50] Oh, we gotta back up.

John Dehlin [01:10:52] So that blessing you got was Allan, and he really was struggling.

Allan Mount [01:10:57] She should probably tell this part of the story.

Kattie Mount [01:10:59] I should tell this part. So we were in the MTC in Provo for three weeks, and then we all got our visas. This was actually cool. We flew to California because you had to pick up your visa in person. We drove by the beach, went to In n out, went to the temple, went and picked up our visa, and then flew home the same day.

Allan Mount [01:11:21] Oh, my ward building was right behind the LA temple, so I got to see the ward building that I was attending just a few months before.

Kattie Mount [01:11:28] Yeah. So it was kind of wild that back then you had to be there in person to pick up your visa. So they had to fly us to la, get our visa, come back. And so we were there for three weeks, and then we went to the Madrid mtc. And if any of you have been to another MTC besides Provo, the Madrid one was really interesting because it sat on the same ground as the temple, and it was just like an apartment building. And the top three floors were the mtc. So you had the sixth floor, which was the president's. The. The fifth floor, which was where we ate, and we had our. Is that where our pisos were? Our apartments?

Allan Mount [01:12:08] No. Yeah, they were the next floor down.

Kattie Mount [01:12:10] The next floor down was classrooms. Classrooms. And then we had our apartments. So it was so small. I mean, you could see anybody at any time. And our MTC president in Madrid happened to be from Allan's home stake.

Allan Mount [01:12:27] He was my stake president.

Kattie Mount [01:12:28] He was stake president.

Allan Mount [01:12:30] Eight or so.

Kattie Mount [01:12:31] Yeah. So right off the bat, I feel like we had special treatment. He was always praising our district for doing all these amazing, wonderful things when everyone was doing the same thing.

Allan Mount [01:12:43] Barcelona, Spain. Mission president years prior. So he favored Barcelona.

Kattie Mount [01:12:47] There was. Yeah, there was some favoritism there. And in the MTC itself, you didn't have to be with your mission companion at all times because we all. It was all so small mixture. So, I mean, if the mission president's wife thought you looked tired, she's like, go lay down. I'll check on you in a little bit. It was just such. It was a really cool environment to be in. Not your typical NTC experience anyway. So I remember one day I was sitting there studying, and I cannot deny in my mind, I mean, I was studying Spanish, and all of a sudden I had this thought into my mind. Elder Mount is the man you're going to marry. The man that you're the man you're going to marry.

John Dehlin [01:13:35] Right? But the man that that home teacher who gave you that blessing prophesied about, right? He's the man of the prophecy.

Allan Mount [01:13:43] He's the one.

Kattie Mount [01:13:44] And it was out of nowhere. And if you know me, I do not like to be told what to do. And I have, like, I can speak my own mind. I can say what I want to. And so I was so angry when I had that thought in my mind, and I said, how do you know who I'm gonna marry? And at the time, we were friends, but it wasn't like, romantically. And we are at the beginning of the mission, and now I have to go through two full years knowing this. And it made me mad. It made me really mad. And so Allan and I left the MTC together.

Kattie Mount [01:14:24] And I kid you not, I cannot make this up. We. Our tickets, our seat tickets were next to each other on the plane ride from Madrid to Barcelona, and everyone else was sitting everywhere else, but he and I were in the seats next to each other.

Allan Mount [01:14:41] Yeah, Ryanair playing matchmaker.

Kattie Mount [01:14:44] That's right. So we get on the plane, and by the way, when I was in the mtc, there was like a mission couple who worked there, and they were from Hawaii, who knew my family, Polynesian couple, knew my family, loved me, would bring me, like, Hawaiian chocolate macadamia nuts that they had. I mean, it was just like, we were so well taken care of. And we were babied for sure.

John Dehlin [01:15:12] Yeah, we were babied.

Kattie Mount [01:15:13] Anyway, so we get. We're in the air on our way to the mission, and I have all of these, like, stirring feelings and thoughts. And if this is my future husband, you know, he had told us that he had his mission call to Barcelona and then he had to delay it.

Allan Mount [01:15:29] Oh.

Kattie Mount [01:15:30] And.

Allan Mount [01:15:30] And I kind of said that in one of my district meeting things.

Kattie Mount [01:15:33] Right. And so that's vulnerability.

Allan Mount [01:15:35] Well, what can you do?

Kattie Mount [01:15:37] Overshare Allan. Allan does over share.

John Dehlin [01:15:39] So do I.

Kattie Mount [01:15:41] So I. I started to think, like, what was this timeline? So I start asking him questions like, so what was the timeline of you getting the call?

Allan Mount [01:15:51] When did this happen? When did you get your call? When'd you get your second call?

John Dehlin [01:15:54] What was going on?

Kattie Mount [01:15:55] Matched right up with my blessing time. Yes. I'm not kidding.

Allan Mount [01:16:03] And she's freaking out. I'm freaking out, and I don't know about any blessing at this point. And she's just asking me these questions. I'm like, what is happening? So I pull out my journal, give it to her, and she writes a little paragraph in it that says. It's so vague, but it just says, I received a blessing before the mission, and now I know what it meant.

Allan Mount [01:16:21] And that was it. And I'm like, okay, so that's what we're gonna have. Well, you land in Barcelona. You're picked up by the mission president. You're taken on a brief tour of the city. Beautiful, wonderful city. Then you go to the mission office, and he matches you up with your trainer, and you're off. So it was very whirlwind.

Allan Mount [01:16:40] Barcelona's in the. In the northern part of the eastern coast of Spain. And we're kind of. The entire mission is the eastern half of Spain, basically. So you can go anywhere. It's pretty spread out. It's about as Spain in. In total is about the size of Nevada and Utah put together. So our mission is about half the size of Utah, but north to south, it's about the same length. So we get our companions, and we have train tickets to get to. Our three of us are going down south, and the four others are staying in the north. And our train tickets. We go to the Barcelona train station. We get on the. The train and where our assigned seats. I'm sitting next to Kattie.

John Dehlin [01:17:19] Oh, my gosh.

Allan Mount [01:17:20] Going down to the southern part of

John Dehlin [01:17:21] the train and the plate.

Kattie Mount [01:17:22] And we're. And we're going down to the same. Like, adjoining areas.

John Dehlin [01:17:26] Yeah. I can deny the witness. This is like too many witnesses.

Allan Mount [01:17:29] I'll tell you what. That plays a part.

Kattie Mount [01:17:31] That plays a part. Yeah. So we get on the train and

Allan Mount [01:17:34] she decides to tell me a little more.

Kattie Mount [01:17:35] I tell her, I don't remember what I told you.

Allan Mount [01:17:37] She told me basically everything. But it said, I'm going to marry this person. So she told me someone. Someone was struggling with. With temple worthiness. You need to pray for them. And she writes this in my journal. I still. I should have brought it. I still have it. And that's a lot of intimacy for mission 18 or 9. That was 20. Sorry, 20 and 21 year old at the time.

John Dehlin [01:18:00] There's a lot of emotional intimacy.

Allan Mount [01:18:01] I know. So she writes this in my journal. She even at the end says, there's more, but I can't tell you until we're done.

Kattie Mount [01:18:07] And the first thing, I'm embarrassed by this.

Allan Mount [01:18:10] Don't Be. Don't be. The first thing that I thought was, there's more. What other. Like, does it say he's going to end up killing you? No, it's going to be. He's. You're going to marry this guy. It's got to be.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] Yeah. Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:18:21] Anyway, so I. I get that. I'm literally an hour and a half away from the mission field. I've been preparing my whole life for this.

John Dehlin [01:18:28] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:18:29] And so I tell her, I'm like, I got to go to the bathroom, and I take my scriptures and I walk into the train bathroom and lock the door. I get on my knees in the train bathroom and open my. Open my Scriptures. And it's one of those moments of like, let the book open to the right page. I open it and it flops open to Alma 5. And John, I will not deny my experiences. Right. So I'm reading in Alma 5, and words are just jumping off of the page. And it's Alma 5. If I could be mistaken on the chapter. It's been a while since I've revisited it, but it talks about the coming of Christ and it talks about Mary.

Allan Mount [01:19:10] This is the mother of Christ, and he's going to come. And, you know, some of the words that are used is, there's one thing that is yet to come is greater than all. And you don't know what that is, and you don't need to know what that is, but just know that it's coming and it's going to be great. That's basically like, over the course of five or six different verses. That's. And I highlighted it. So I still have the scriptures where I highlighted what words were jumping out to me. And I kind of created this story of like, okay, it's like, this is. God's hand is in this. Now let's get to the mission field. And we literally. We dropped it at that point.

Kattie Mount [01:19:49] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:19:50] And we went and served missions.

Kattie Mount [01:19:53] Yeah, we. I mean, we. We had to. We had to swallow it and learn the language and just figure things out while we were there. But it's interesting because we served in the same adjoining area. So we saw each other for like, zone conferences or any of those types of. Types of meetings. And then the same transfer, we both get transferred up north and we're again in adjoining areas and see each other off and on. And then he gets sent down south. And one transfer later, I get done south adjoining areas. So we don't. We never serve tormented.

John Dehlin [01:20:31] The Lord is just tormenting you constantly.

Kattie Mount [01:20:33] Well, we never serve in the same area. It's always adjoining. So it was only at conferences that

Allan Mount [01:20:38] we would see each other, which is awful.

Kattie Mount [01:20:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:42] Awesome.

Kattie Mount [01:20:42] It was awesome.

Allan Mount [01:20:43] I had told. I told a few missionary companions.

John Dehlin [01:20:45] It was awesomely awful.

Allan Mount [01:20:46] Awfully awesome. Yeah, it was awfully awesome. That's a good one. I told a few missionary companions about this whole blessing situation, and so they tease me a little bit. One of them asked her out when. Because he went home.

Kattie Mount [01:20:56] Because he got home before him.

Allan Mount [01:20:58] She went home, of course, before I did. So he sends me a picture of him on a date with her.

Kattie Mount [01:21:02] Oh.

Allan Mount [01:21:03] And I'm just like, oh, you rascal.

John Dehlin [01:21:05] I just. I relate to this because I had a crush on a. On a sister named Lori Ashman, Hermanna Ashman, who went to Uruguay. And we knew each other in the mtc and we wrote on. And it brings a charge to your service because you want to be worthy for this person. You may see him every once in a while, but you're not supposed to have any of those feelings or you're supposed to cramp them down. So it brings this charge to the mission experience that's kind of cool and special, but also tormenting.

Kattie Mount [01:21:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:37] Right.

Kattie Mount [01:21:37] Also, I'm like. I think Allan and I, both of us are easily Twitter painted right by the people, enamored by the people that we like meet or the boyfriends, girlfriends. And I think when I fall, I fall hard. I think Ellen does, too. And so I actually feel like it was a really cool thing that for two years we couldn't do anything and we had to learn how to be really good friends before we could get to that stage. That's great. To me, that was a huge thing.

Allan Mount [01:22:12] And the very last thing we'll say about this, the matchmaking aspect of it, is halfway through our mission, or through my mission, at least after the first year, our mission president, they were swapped out, Right. So one Shane bowen. He's currently first quorum of the 70. He went out, he went home, and John Watson came in John Watson Chevrolet up in Layton. Night and day difference as far as personalities go. And John Watson, just charismatic, wears jeans around. You never would see President Bowen outside of a suit and tie. President Watson gives you a knucklehead.

Kattie Mount [01:22:50] He's a dad.

Allan Mount [01:22:51] He's your dad. And I matched up really well with President Watson. So I ended up at the very end of the mission in the office, and I was actually going home to a different Katy.

John Dehlin [01:23:05] Wait, ap. So you were ap?

Kattie Mount [01:23:06] Yes.

Allan Mount [01:23:07] At the very end? Yes.

John Dehlin [01:23:08] Wow. Of course.

Allan Mount [01:23:09] So I was about to Go. I was about to go home. And I was just about to go home. A girl who was not a member of the church. Remember, I was going to convert my wife. A member who was not a member of the church.

Kattie Mount [01:23:22] Also named Kattie.

Allan Mount [01:23:23] Also named Kattie. I called her Kattie the Catholic for alliteration's sake, even though she wasn't Catholic and she had gotten a Book of Mormon from my mom towards the end of my mission. Was reading a few things, and I'm like, okay, it's all coming together. You know, this is in the back of my mind, but this is in front of me. I'm still going to ucla, so I'm not going to be going back to Utah.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] And Kattie's grinning

Allan Mount [01:23:50] won't belabor the point much here, but BYU recruited me for their volleyball team towards the end of my mission. And I.

John Dehlin [01:23:58] They had the national standing. It was a good team.

Allan Mount [01:24:01] They beat ucla in the 2001 national championship. I was on the UCLA team when they beat us. Oh, then I went on my mission.

John Dehlin [01:24:08] Yeah. You traitor.

Allan Mount [01:24:09] I hated byu. I hated byu.

John Dehlin [01:24:13] Celtics.

Allan Mount [01:24:14] Yeah, worse. I have a picture of me grimacing at the Y on the mountain in the mtc. I hated byu. They had. They had some.

Meeting Each Other and Falling in Love

John Dehlin [01:24:24] That's because Danny Ainge, Greg Kite and Fred. Fred Roberts all went to byu. And you hated the Celtics.

Allan Mount [01:24:30] That's. There you go. There were. There were some personal family reasons for. For the hatred of byu. But anyway, yeah, when I ended up transferring to BYU towards the end of my mission. Now, that's illegal, by the way. You're not allowed to do that. It's against NCAA regulations.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] Oh, to transfer to.

Allan Mount [01:24:47] To recruit missionaries.

Kattie Mount [01:24:50] Missionaries.

Allan Mount [01:24:50] Ben Olson was a quarterback at BYU and. Or at ucla. Yeah, and other way around. It got switched up in my mind, but NCAA ended up making a rule, but I was there before that. So I had a guy who I went to high school with who played at byu, Sean Olmsted, who's the current BYU head coach of the men's team. He told the coach, when the coach asked, does anyone know any missionaries serving right now that aren't playing here for whatever reason? And he said, yeah, I got a guy, Allan Mount, who plays at ucla. And they contacted me, offered me a scholarship, and my heart was softened.

Kattie Mount [01:25:22] Well, so I was at uvsc, and when I got home from my mission, I just thought maybe I should transfer to byu. And I wasn't a great student, again, because I am a social person. So it was all about the social stuff, not necessarily about the school stuff. And so I Applied to go to byu, which my dad works there. So I was getting half tuition and I thought, well, I'm going to save a bunch of money. I just got home.

John Dehlin [01:25:52] This is the Lord's university.

Kattie Mount [01:25:53] Yeah, that's right. I was an EFY counselor after I got back, so I wanted to transfer. So I got a letter saying I was, you know, that they accepted me. My mom cried. She. She couldn't believe it because I wasn't a great student, you know, But I got accepted. So I wrote Ellen a letter saying, hey, I'm going to be at BYU in the Folly transfer. And it was.

Allan Mount [01:26:16] I wrote her a letter.

Kattie Mount [01:26:17] Wrote me a letter.

Allan Mount [01:26:18] The letters crossed within days.

Kattie Mount [01:26:21] Within days of each other.

John Dehlin [01:26:22] This is a story made in the celestial kingdom. This is a story that soulmates. Soulmates. This is Saturday's Warrior.

Allan Mount [01:26:29] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Version two. I've seen that smile somewhere. Right? This is.

Allan Mount [01:26:35] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:26:35] A story made in the celestial kingdom.

Allan Mount [01:26:38] It all came together on the very.

John Dehlin [01:26:39] It was foreordained in the council before the world was.

Allan Mount [01:26:43] That's right, Lady Allen. It didn't matter what we wanted.

Kattie Mount [01:26:46] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:26:47] Yeah, it was.

Allan Mount [01:26:48] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] Yeah. You were agents unto yourselves.

Kattie Mount [01:26:50] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:26:51] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:26:51] The very last day of the mission, my brother and his wife were visiting. My parents were about to get there, or they probably, I think, were already there. But my brother had done some laundry in the mission president's home, which was the floor above the office. So I went up to pick it up. And that same day, I'd gotten a Dear John letter from the other Kattie.

John Dehlin [01:27:11] Oh, Kattie. Catholic.

Allan Mount [01:27:12] Kattie the Catholic.

John Dehlin [01:27:13] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:27:13] And she.

John Dehlin [01:27:14] Dear John to you.

Allan Mount [01:27:15] Yeah. There was another Kattie who was lds. We called her Kattie of the Covenant. Oh, but she's Kattie the Keeper.

Kattie Mount [01:27:20] Yeah, but I took. It took him a few years to figure that one out.

Allan Mount [01:27:23] That's right. That's right. Kattie of the Covenants in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir right now.

John Dehlin [01:27:27] Nice.

Allan Mount [01:27:27] She's great. So I go and tell my mission president that, hey, Kattie the Catholic has Dear John to me like she's going to. She's not only that, but she's going back with her ex boyfriend who is a pastor or a youth pastor in

John Dehlin [01:27:43] their church in the Church of the Devil.

Allan Mount [01:27:46] Great and abominable. So I, yeah, I told him. And he puts his arm around me like he does, and he's like, let me tell you something, Elder. There's another Kattie that is just dying to date you.

Kattie Mount [01:27:57] I had not said.

Allan Mount [01:27:58] She hadn't said A word.

John Dehlin [01:28:00] You guys didn't have a chance.

Allan Mount [01:28:02] No chance.

Kattie Mount [01:28:02] No chance.

Allan Mount [01:28:03] No chance. And she hadn't said a word. I hadn't said a word. And he says that. And he goes, you know, Elder, you know, you get home and the badge comes off and you think, huh, she's not so bad looking. And I'm like, president, stop it.

Kattie Mount [01:28:18] He's like, well, keep it in the family so I can keep tabs on all of you. Right.

Allan Mount [01:28:23] So I get home May 22, 2002. We ended up. I ended up visiting her in Utah, July 4th weekend. We went to Stadium of Fire, much to her dad's dismay. We're sitting a row in front of them, just all over each other, and we knew we were getting married at that point. So six weeks later, we knew we were getting married. I proposed the day after I moved to Utah August 22nd, and we were married December 18th, 2004. Wow.

John Dehlin [01:28:50] 2004.

Allan Mount [01:28:51] Four. Yeah. I misspoke. But 2004. Yeah, that's when we got married.

Kattie Mount [01:28:54] He got home in June and we got married in December. Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:28:57] So the mission was 2002 to 2004. We got married December of 2004.

John Dehlin [01:29:02] Wow.

Allan Mount [01:29:02] Almost 15 years.

John Dehlin [01:29:03] That's the year I moved to. I left Microsoft to move to YouTube.

Allan Mount [01:29:06] Right?

John Dehlin [01:29:07] Yeah. So. So Mormon stories is going to be born, like, in four months from your years.

Kattie Mount [01:29:11] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:29:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:12] Four months from kind of your anniversary. Mormon Stories born. I like to keep things kind of in my head chronologically.

Allan Mount [01:29:18] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:29:18] You guys are so young. You're babies. Your babies.

Allan Mount [01:29:21] The hairline and the stress marks all over here.

Kattie Mount [01:29:25] There are stress marks, but for kids.

Allan Mount [01:29:27] Mine are on camera. They betray me.

John Dehlin [01:29:31] I'm gonna read a few. We've had some great comments from. From listeners, and Cameron writes, I'm here for Kattie. She's clearly the reason this marriage is working.

Kattie Mount [01:29:45] That's his brother, probably.

Allan Mount [01:29:48] He's the greatest.

John Dehlin [01:29:50] That's your brother. Cameron. Cameron.

Allan Mount [01:29:51] Cameron. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:52] Okay. Rosa writes, I have siblings. This is kind of. We're going to be covering some of the things we've talked about so far. This is kind of like a capstone to part one of this interview.

Allan Mount [01:30:02] Great.

John Dehlin [01:30:02] Rosa writes, I have siblings that were forbidden to read Harry Potter because it was witchcraft. So this is kind of the Bruce Armaconke face card, switchy board kind of thing that we touched on. Let's see. Leandra. No, let's say Donald writes. Just listen to the Mount's latest podcast this morning while riding my bike. This is Donald Riddle. They are great people, and I love Their podcast very balanced and helpful for people on both sides of these issues. So a vote from Donald. Recommendation from Donald for marriage on a tightrope podcast. Rachel writes. Rachel Katz Cooper writes. Hearing the story of Allan brings up so much hurt for me. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing. I'm assuming she's talking about love, chastity, bishop kind of interactions as a teen. So Rachel, thanks.

Allan Mount [01:30:51] Rachel's great. Rachel's our Disney sister, by the way. She knows what that means.

John Dehlin [01:30:56] Sorry for your pain. Rachel, thanks for your vulnerability as well. Charlene says, I settled too. Kattie husband is only 6 4. That's about having tall husbands. Courtney writes Balcony room with a heart. I don't know what she means by that.

Kattie Mount [01:31:14] Courtney, she's been there.

Allan Mount [01:31:15] Courtney is from Santa Barbara as well, so she knows that room well.

John Dehlin [01:31:18] Courtney also writes. So many awesome memories at the Mount house growing up.

Allan Mount [01:31:22] We had. Just like Kattie's family, we had a very open house. My mom was known for her cookies. She was known when anybody was leaving the house to say, don't go. Don't go.

John Dehlin [01:31:31] I say that.

Allan Mount [01:31:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:33] Debbie Belgian Helgeson writes. She's quoting me. Growing up Mormon is a wonderful upbringing. Then she writes, but how do you reconcile that now, knowing everything in her from her perspective, she's saying was based on lies. I'm not Mormon, so maybe I don't understand at all. So she's basically saying, how can. How can you have a wonderful upbringing in a religious tradition that later you may discover isn't what it claimed to be? It's just the way it is.

Allan Mount [01:32:03] Like there's good and bad in every situation.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] I mean. Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:32:07] Can I give an example? I mean, it's. It's like, man. Of course, the thing I think about is a political. Politically charged. But I'll say it anyway. There can be people that, that met their spouse while they were serving in Vietnam and it was a terrible experience for them to be there. Yeah. The war itself or, or any number of awful situations. You have stories of people in concentration camps during World War II meeting. And beautiful things can happen from terrible situations. And that's not to say that the church was a terrible situation. There's so much good. Right. That's the worst case scenario. So in, in the upbringing. We've already kind of discussed this, John. There's. There's so much good and, and there's sprinkles of. Of some things that we wish we can share.

Kattie Mount [01:32:52] I think that it's. It's just like your spouse, like, until you really get to Know them, you don't see any of the flaws. And a lot of the times you think like, everything's great and it's not until like something jumps out that you're like, oh, wait, that's not so great. You know, it's not.

John Dehlin [01:33:09] But. But what?

Kattie Mount [01:33:09] I kind of.

John Dehlin [01:33:10] Yeah, but what I would say to Debbie is growing up Mormon in the 80s or 90s or 2000s or even now can be amazing. Just imagine a congregational community that loves you, where you know everybody, you sing together, you teach together, you preach together, you serve each other, you have potlucks and ward activities and trick or treat nights and, you know, youth dances with all these Mormon teens where you're dancing together and having fun together. And temple trips where you go on bus excursions to visit the temple and dances festivals and road shows and youth conferences where you spend a whole weekend learning and having fun and dancing and buried testimony.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] You've got adult leaders that believe in you and care about you and tell you that you're going to do great things in your life, even if your home isn't the best home. And you're thinking about higher things, you're thinking about a God and a savior who love you and you're trying to be one of the noble and great ones here to save the world from sin. Like, what's not to love? It's amazing, isn't it? That's not everyone's experience. Sure, that was my experience.

Kattie Mount [01:34:20] That was my experience.

Allan Mount [01:34:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:21] So what's not the love, Debbie?

Allan Mount [01:34:23] Yeah, yeah, We've talked to a few listeners that it's the non believing spouse that is, that is pushing their kids to be involved because their lived experience was what you just explained, John. And the truth claims are just one part of it.

John Dehlin [01:34:38] Tangential.

Allan Mount [01:34:39] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:34:39] I mean, it's central, but it's also peripheral. It's simultaneously peripheral and tangential.

Allan Mount [01:34:44] Right.

John Dehlin [01:34:44] Whether it's true or not, it's amazing.

Allan Mount [01:34:47] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:34:48] Right? Yeah, agreed.

Kattie Mount [01:34:49] I agree.

John Dehlin [01:34:51] Abby writes, Woohoo. I love their podcast. This is Abby Dean. Abby also writes, they're so cute. You guys are cute.

Allan Mount [01:34:59] Abby, stop it.

Listener Comments on Part One

John Dehlin [01:35:03] Let's see Charlene. Charlene writes I believe that and taught that to youth with the example that when you wander off the path and focus on your own desires, you miss opportunities to bless and serve others on the righteous path God prepares for you. So she's talking about how we talk about sin and pressure of youth, et cetera. Eldon Larsen writes, I was in the Madrid MTC with Allan and Kattie just a few weeks behind them. So One of your fellow missionaries.

Allan Mount [01:35:32] Very nice.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] Did you know about Eldon?

Allan Mount [01:35:34] We've talked a few times. I don't remember him making that connection. And maybe if you did. Eldon, I'm sorry, I forgot. But that's great.

John Dehlin [01:35:41] Stacy writes, there's still good things in it like service and helping others that don't have anything to do with the doctrine. Like there's truth in every religion. Service is truth and good. Melissa Wells, who grew up with me in Katy, Texas, she's tuning in. She writes, it's unfortunate, but there are good Mormon members, which lends to the confusion when one chooses to leave the church. Melissa. Just talking about her dad, Gary, who was my Sunday school teacher. She says, my dad was a devout member of the church, but was also my greatest friend, Ally, when I left the church in my late teens.

John Dehlin [01:36:13] The last blessing he gave, literally 24 hours before he passed was given to my then 16 year old son. So many tender memories and priesthood leaders. We're kind of hard on priesthood leaders in 2019. But there are a lot of good ones who just love you and care about you and serve and sacrifice and are kind and gentle and loving. Right?

Kattie Mount [01:36:35] Yeah. I never had a negative experience with a priesthood leader. Yeah, no.

John Dehlin [01:36:40] Yeah. And so we don't talk about that enough because we're trying to get the church to hurt less people.

Allan Mount [01:36:46] Right.

John Dehlin [01:36:46] But sometimes we forget to focus on how much awesomeness there is. Right.

Kattie Mount [01:36:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:51] Yeah. I love it that you guys are sharing that. Let's see. There's so many comments. You guys are gonna have to go back and read some of these comments because they're. There's so many good ones. So I'm. I'm not gonna. Jenna writes that's awesome to be friends first. So she's basically saying it's neat that you guys were friends first before. Before you became lovers. I guess. All right.

Allan Mount [01:37:19] Good order to do things.

John Dehlin [01:37:20] Yeah. Mark Stoddard writes, alan is a great guy. He grew up in her same ward in Goleta. What is that Goleta?

Allan Mount [01:37:28] Yeah. So Goleta is the town we grew up. Yeah. Yeah. And I've spoken with Mark a few times about that.

John Dehlin [01:37:33] His dad was an amazing guy and it's sad he had to leave us so soon. So your dad.

Allan Mount [01:37:37] Spoilers. That's part two, Mark.

Kattie Mount [01:37:39] That's part two, Mark.

John Dehlin [01:37:40] Cut it out, Mark.

Allan Mount [01:37:41] No, I'm just kidding.

John Dehlin [01:37:42] His mom is awesome too. His dad really had an influence on me when he. Well, a bishop. Allan is a really help. Is really helping a lot of faith. Transitioners and he should be applauded for this. So we'll applaud Allan and Kattie. Um, all right, so we're not gonna be able to read all these amazing comments, but thank you all the listeners who are sharing amazing comments and perspectives and I just want to encourage our listeners to go to the Facebook stream and read through some of these because a lot of fun things people are mentioning and we don't have time to read them all. I'll just say one last thing. Ryan Bartlett writes just recently introduced marriage on a tightrope podcast to my TBM wifey and it's helped us find some ground to stand in and work through our mixed Mormon, mixed faith marriage. Love this couple. Forever thankful.

Allan Mount [01:38:29] Thanks Ryan.

Kattie Mount [01:38:30] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:38:31] So that's a little foreshadowing but thanks to everyone so far for joining us on part one. Anything else you want to tell about your sort of of pre marriage sort of life? Did we cover the important stuff?

Allan Mount [01:38:45] I think we covered it all right.

Marriage, Family, and Life at BYU

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 1138

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sa. Now it's on to part two. So we think we want to thank everyone for joining us for this interview of Kattie and Allan Mount, co hosts of Marriage on a Tightrope Podcast, which is all about navigating a Mormon mixed faith marriage. We're grateful for this podcast and the influence it's having. We're excited to promote it to help more people find value in it. And we spent the first hour for those who Bill Real has admitted to me that he always skips my first episode. I've heard that whatever it is, he skips it. So, Bill Real, welcome to part two of my interview at the Mouths.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] Since you didn't listen to the first episode, the first episode we talked about Kattie and Allan's upbringing in the church. Kattie coming from a mixed race race marriage where her dad was from Tonga, mother from Ogden area, but growing up mostly either in California or of Springville, Utah, and what her awesome upbringing was like with a family that was very communicative and emotionally connected and sharing of emotions and very loving and open and supportive, open home to others and very faithful and spiritual. And then Allan talked about his upbringing in Southern California sports, but also faith and church, ucla, volleyball, lots of cool stuff and also some typical adolescent struggles with a lot of chastity related stuff.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] But how he bounced back and they met on their mission and you had no hope, you had no chance, you had to end up married.

Allan Mount [00:02:02] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:02:03] Whether you wanted it or not.

Kattie Mount [00:02:04] Whether we wanted to or not, hopefully.

Allan Mount [00:02:06] I'm glad we wanted it.

Kattie Mount [00:02:06] It was a good time. Yeah, we both wanted it.

John Dehlin [00:02:09] So you'll have to go back and listen now, Bill Real, because that story is epic, it's gripping and it's serendipitous. Or if you're faithful, it's miraculous.

Allan Mount [00:02:18] Like that story.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] How can you deny the divinity of your being meant for each other? So what happened? What happened?

Allan Mount [00:02:27] What happened?

John Dehlin [00:02:28] So you got engaged within a few weeks of knowing each other, both at byu. What happened?

Allan Mount [00:02:36] That's right. I mean, I don't know the first. I think we could probably skip from 2004 to 2013 or so. Is there anything in there that we

John Dehlin [00:02:45] should talk about in 2004?

Kattie Mount [00:02:47] Yeah, we got married in 2004 in the Salt Lake Temple.

John Dehlin [00:02:50] And did you have kind of an understanding of what your life was going to be like? Did you talk about like, here are the commitments? Here's.

Allan Mount [00:02:56] No, we just kind of understood it. I mean, you understand what goes into a temple marriage. That's the commitment you're going to make you're going to raise your kids in the church. I mean, that's what you're getting yourself into. Yeah. You know that.

Kattie Mount [00:03:07] And we both had really good models in our own parents. I mean, my parents had been together, worked through things. Allan's parents, the same thing.

John Dehlin [00:03:15] Former bishop.

Kattie Mount [00:03:16] Right. And so I feel like we had really good role models. And we knew that we were just in it. There's no getting out of it.

John Dehlin [00:03:23] You're on the train.

Kattie Mount [00:03:23] You're on the train. You're gonna have to just work through stuff. We had this awesome wedding. It was Polynesian.

Allan Mount [00:03:30] Gosh.

Kattie Mount [00:03:30] And. And my mom is surprised. So we. In like Polynesian cultural. You'll have like a full dinner, sit down dinner. And in. If you are like Tongan marrying another Tongan, these celebrations can last four, five, six hours, the whole night. Right. We were like dancers and dancing and the pig and the presentation of the. Of all of the gifts and the money. Right. You know, you see people putting money on. On the dancer.

Allan Mount [00:04:04] Dancers are oiled up.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Oh, it's not a money tree.

Allan Mount [00:04:07] No. And people go money dance. Literally stick money to.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] It's kind of like a Mormon version of a strip show.

Allan Mount [00:04:13] Like a Tongan Mormon strip show.

John Dehlin [00:04:15] Greased up young Mormon girls.

Kattie Mount [00:04:18] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:18] Tongan Mormon girls.

Kattie Mount [00:04:20] Sometimes they're older ladies. It's aunts, and sometimes it's uncles. And you just put it in their hair and throw it above their heads

Allan Mount [00:04:29] and then you join them on the dance floor. So you put the money and then you go behind the dancer and you just kind of start doing your dances as well. It's beautiful. It's a really fun event.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] And you rake in the dough.

Kattie Mount [00:04:39] Okay, so we rake in the dough. But the funny thing I didn't really know this until after is they'll collect the money and then they'll redistribute it so that people can throw it again. So it's dancer after dancer with some new money coming in, but also just the money that's already been collected. So it just looks like you're getting thousands of dollars thrown at you all night long. But that was really fun. My mom, Allan's mother and grandmother were there and they were both Scottish. And so my mom surprised them with this, like these bagpip from Payson.

John Dehlin [00:05:17] Wow.

Kattie Mount [00:05:18] Who played. And they did a jig on the dance floor. I mean, it was.

John Dehlin [00:05:22] It was a multicultural festival.

Kattie Mount [00:05:25] Tongue.

Allan Mount [00:05:25] It's just your traditional tongue. And Scottish.

Kattie Mount [00:05:27] Scottish wedding.

Allan Mount [00:05:28] We all know how.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] Mormon. Mormon, Mormon.

Allan Mount [00:05:30] Tongan Scottish wedding.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] That's right. White Utah Mormon, you know, it is.

Allan Mount [00:05:35] Everyone knows what those are like.

Kattie Mount [00:05:38] It was awesome, though. We had like, we really had. It was magical.

Allan Mount [00:05:41] It was great. Towards the end, her uncle was being a little bit verbose and we're two Mormon kids that are like, okay, we've

Kattie Mount [00:05:50] gotta get outta here.

Allan Mount [00:05:50] We got a room at the Grand America and we're going to New York tomorrow, so let's get out of here.

Kattie Mount [00:05:54] Yeah. So we leave and then that kind of just sets us on this course. Allan is in school full time. I'm in school full time. I'm working a part time job and he's playing volleyball. So the first couple years, life's busy, but it's fun. About.

John Dehlin [00:06:11] Okay, wait, really quick. How did the volleyball team do while you were at byu?

Allan Mount [00:06:15] So we won part of the story, but the BYU team, well.

John Dehlin [00:06:18] Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Kattie Mount [00:06:19] No, no, you're gonna miss it. Yeah, goes right into this.

Allan Mount [00:06:22] The 2004 is the last time that BYU men's won the national championship.

John Dehlin [00:06:26] That was while you were at ucla

Allan Mount [00:06:28] or that was right.

John Dehlin [00:06:29] While you're missing.

Allan Mount [00:06:30] Two weeks before I got home from. So I signed my letter of intent, I signed my letter of intent, I

John Dehlin [00:06:35] went with the winning team.

Allan Mount [00:06:36] And then. Well, I signed the letter of intent before they won. And then we went, oh, okay. And then they won.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] Oh, okay.

Allan Mount [00:06:41] Two weeks later.

John Dehlin [00:06:42] And that was a big deal when BYU won the show.

Allan Mount [00:06:44] It was a very big deal.

John Dehlin [00:06:45] Yeah. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:06:45] And then. Yeah. And then I got home. They were, they were good there. I only played for. I played for one year while I was there and stopped two years short of eligibility because we decided to start our family. And we decided to start our family because we went into the, the Provo Temple and we went in to do laundry. We were like, where do you need most help? And they're like, we could really use some people in the laundry. So we went into the laundry room. The laundry room's like one of the only places you can talk at normal levels. So we're just doing laundry, talking to people, talking to each other rather. And was it I that asked the question?

Kattie Mount [00:07:24] Well, at the time, in the back of my head, my sister had already been married and she had struggled with infertility. And so we start talking about that. And then we said, well, when should we start our family?

Allan Mount [00:07:40] Yeah, when you ask that question in the temple, the feeling generally is you should start now.

John Dehlin [00:07:45] It's like, wait seven years.

Allan Mount [00:07:46] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:07:47] Wait seven years. These spirits have a career, get a graduate degree.

Allan Mount [00:07:51] Kattie, wait till you're financially stable. Wait till you're financially stable and then you can start.

John Dehlin [00:07:56] That's all the answer in the Provo temple.

Allan Mount [00:07:59] That's right. We left feeling we got to start this family. I had a scholarship and because of NCAA rules, I couldn't get a job. You can't. I couldn't earn money, so I had to quit volleyball. So I quit volleyball and lost your scholarship and forwent my scholarship.

Kattie Mount [00:08:19] The thing is, is I seriously thought I'm going to have the same infertility issues my sister will. So we got to get a jump start on it. And, and that didn't work out. And I mean, I was older. Cause at the time, like you had to go on a mission when you're

John Dehlin [00:08:35] 21, you're like 23.

Kattie Mount [00:08:37] I came home, I came home and I kid you not, someone said to me, look, you only have a small window of time to find someone that will take you at your age, at your advanced age. At your advanced age. She was 23, I was 23.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] That's old grandma.

Kattie Mount [00:08:52] It was. And so I said, I was like, well, you know, we need to get moving. It's time. 24. I need to have, you know, a baby. And so I thought, oh, it'll take years. No, the next month.

John Dehlin [00:09:05] Oh, one.

Kattie Mount [00:09:07] It took one time, maybe two. And then I was pregnant.

Allan Mount [00:09:11] So by the time I graduated, it took me a long time to graduate because I had to get a full time job. And then I'm still taking classes.

John Dehlin [00:09:17] So wait, did you have a baby in less than a year?

Kattie Mount [00:09:19] No, at night. We were married nine months when we started. And so a year and a half into our marriage, he was, he came. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:09:27] So it wasn't a honeymoon baby like some couples will share, but by the time I graduated, I had two kids. And when those kids start coming and you're still in school and you're working 50 to 60 hours a week trying to get by, man. I went from, at UCLA like a 2.9 GPA, got back from the mission. Now I'm a 4.0 student because the mission taught me some good, good habits. And then kids start coming and it was just Cs, get degrees. Let's just, let's, let's, let's get it.

John Dehlin [00:09:56] So what were you studying?

Allan Mount [00:09:57] Economics with a business minor. Just, it was the shortest major at the time. Yeah, yeah, I, I enjoyed math and that was a big part of it.

John Dehlin [00:10:05] I. Economics is cool.

Allan Mount [00:10:07] I, I really like my economics.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] What were you studying?

Kattie Mount [00:10:09] So I was studying at the time I was an English major with an emphasis in creative writing. They have a creative writing degree now, but it was English.

John Dehlin [00:10:20] Did you finish while you were there?

Kattie Mount [00:10:21] I did not. I was, I'm. I finished short of like a year, year and a half.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] That's why I took Margi away when she had a year to go.

Kattie Mount [00:10:28] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:29] My regrets. She finished, but through correspondence courses.

Allan Mount [00:10:32] Kattie's gonna finish. Yeah, we've talked about it.

Kattie Mount [00:10:35] I really regret that that's in my future. I want to. Yeah, but you know, you just do what you have to do at the

John Dehlin [00:10:41] time I'm on the train.

Kattie Mount [00:10:42] That's right. Two kids.

John Dehlin [00:10:44] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:10:45] Working. Both of us working.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Were we working? What your part time jobs, what were they?

Allan Mount [00:10:50] I was in cell phone sales.

John Dehlin [00:10:53] Oh, like back in the day.

Allan Mount [00:10:55] This is in the heyday.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] Kiosk at a mall.

Kattie Mount [00:10:57] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:10:57] Like Nokia was king when I started selling phones.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Swedish, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:11:03] And then I, I mean ever Since I was 19, I worked in and out of the hospital so I was always like a secretary or receptionist or the Utah office manager. Yeah, Utah Valley. So I worked in a few different orthopedics office and then I ended. I worked about seven, eight years in the emergency room at Utah Valley.

John Dehlin [00:11:24] Nice.

Kattie Mount [00:11:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:25] Wow.

Kattie Mount [00:11:25] For a while.

John Dehlin [00:11:26] So you're a hard working couple, having kids, finishing the degree.

Allan Mount [00:11:29] That's right, yeah. Finished the degree. Law school was a thought, but it was like a blip and. But then by the time I graduated to the cell phone thing, I'd moved into management and it was like, well, I'm making pretty good money so I'll just keep doing this.

Kattie Mount [00:11:42] So we purchased a house right after our second son was born.

Allan Mount [00:11:45] July 2007 is when we bought a house. We didn't pray about that one in the.

Kattie Mount [00:11:50] We did not. We just.

John Dehlin [00:11:52] Wait. That's the crash.

Kattie Mount [00:11:53] Yeah, that was the crash.

Allan Mount [00:11:55] So we bought the townhome for 150,000. It was worth 170. Her parents owned it so they gave us a little.

Kattie Mount [00:12:01] They gave us a break. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:12:02] And four, five years later we short sold it for 105.

John Dehlin [00:12:06] So five years later.

Allan Mount [00:12:08] Yeah, it had plummeted.

Kattie Mount [00:12:09] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:12:11] Allan lost his job and so we, we moved in with her parents for a year in Springville.

Kattie Mount [00:12:16] Oh, it was hard. It was really hard. And we had just had baby number three when we moved with my parents and they were, I mean really like so good, so good of them to take us in. Yeah, really.

John Dehlin [00:12:27] And Allan, you're talking like this is two decades ago. This is like seven years ago.

Kattie Mount [00:12:32] This Is seven years ago. No, it was.

Allan Mount [00:12:34] It feels like a different lifetime.

Kattie Mount [00:12:35] It feels like a different lifetime. It does. And Allan got his now job through actually a mission.

Allan Mount [00:12:42] Friend referred me. Yeah, we're still good friends. And that job ended up working out. They were based out of Murray. And so after a year with her parents, we paid off some debt and got to a place where we could move up to Murray.

John Dehlin [00:12:56] From Murray. Yeah, I've been to your old Murray home.

Kattie Mount [00:12:59] Yeah, we were in Taylor's house.

Allan Mount [00:13:00] Yes, you have been to the Murray home. So we just. Actually, John. Yeah. I don't know if you know this. You don't. I'm about to tell you. We are moving today. Most of our last night was our first night in our new home.

John Dehlin [00:13:12] Oh, cool.

Kattie Mount [00:13:13] Two doors down, two doors away from

John Dehlin [00:13:14] where we currently were.

Kattie Mount [00:13:15] Same neighborhood, everything.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] Congrats. Thank you. That's awesome.

Allan Mount [00:13:18] We initially moved to Taylorsville and my sister, who you have not heard from yet, but my sister Colleen was a schoolteacher in Utah at the time, and she moved into our basement. That's how we were able to afford it. So she paid not quite half, but much of the rent. Mother in law, apartment in the bottom. So we moved up to Taylorsville and that was a big moment spiritually for us because when we moved up, we were moving out of a ward that we knew we were going to be temporarily in her home ward. And we moved up to this new ward. And do you remember the conversation we had where I turned to her and I said, we can be whoever we want to be.

Allan Mount [00:13:54] They don't know us. We can work so hard and volunteer for everything, and we can come in here just like this new family that is going to save this ward. Not save the ward like they need saving, but we're gonna do everything we can. Build the world and do it the right way and. Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] Build and strengthen Zion.

Kattie Mount [00:14:13] And Because. And I think part of this was that we were in a really transient ward before, so we lived in townhomes and people were constantly moving in and out. And it was. I mean, they would split it and split. Split it again and split it again because they were building like crazy. And so we didn't really have.

Kattie Mount [00:14:33] Well, we had friends in the neighborhood and in the ward. We didn't really feel like we belonged to anywhere. There was nowhere that was really like, counting on us to be there to do the job. And so when we moved to Taylorsville, we had already scoped out the new ward and we knew that they could use us. And so we just Decided we, we are going to go full fledged. We're gonna go in there guns a blazing and we're gonna volunteer for everything. And I was pregnant at the time with number four. And we moved in in the spring of 2013. And June. It was June.

Allan Mount [00:15:12] And then within four weeks, I was called as Elders Quorum president. Right. So right at the beginning, they're like, who do you want to be your counselors? I'm like, I don't know any. I don't even know their names. I don't know anybody's names in. But. So we went in super hard traditionally, like you do. We spoke that first week and we spoke in the word of wisdom.

Kattie Mount [00:15:32] Yes, we did.

Allan Mount [00:15:33] That was fun. Anyway, and being called as Elders Quorum president, I was going to the bishop's like fresh meat.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] That's right, fresh meat.

Allan Mount [00:15:42] He's not burned out yet. Yeah. And we loved our bishop. He continues to be great, but he, you know, I'm extended that call. And just a general overview. I loved that calling. And you want to talk to someone that loves home teaching or ministering. Now, I still think it's the coolest thing in the world if it's done the way that it should be. But I'm called and before I could get set apart. So this is within a month of us moving to Taylorsville. We get a phone call one night from my oldest brother Jason. It's about 9:00pm and I'm like, Ooh, it's 11:00 clock in Georgia.

Allan Mount [00:16:16] That's where my whole family is now. Um, and I answer the phone and I can just tell immediately that something was wrong. And my brother Jason said, dad's been in a car accident and he's in the hospital now. They're checking him. It looks like he has a neck injury, but we don't know much more than that.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] Was your dad in Georgia?

Allan Mount [00:16:37] This is. Yes, he was in Georgia. Why was he not in kill our whole family? We skipped that. Between 2006 to 2009, our whole family moved over to Georgia.

John Dehlin [00:16:47] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:16:49] And.

Kattie Mount [00:16:49] And the majority of the grandkids were there, so. And, and Jim's. Jim, my father in law, his dream was to have a house on the lake and live out as a retirement days with the grandkids and the lake. And so they found a house in Georgia and they purchased this beautiful home on the lake.

Allan Mount [00:17:07] Two boats and we go there. We're next in about a week and a half. We're going to for the month of July. That's why we're taking A break.

Kattie Mount [00:17:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] So you got that call.

Allan Mount [00:17:16] We get that call from my oldest brother who tells me that. And I get off the phone and I mean, you can imagine shell shock. And I walk out, tell Kattie, and I'm like, we just don't know what's happening. He calls back within another hour or so and says it looks like there's pretty severe neck damage to his spine. And. And they said that we need everyone to get out here.

Kattie Mount [00:17:38] Yeah, well, they said that he was instantly a quadriplegic. And that's what they knew right off the bat.

Allan's Father's Accident and Passing

Allan Mount [00:17:45] There's very small chance that the swelling could diminish and feeling could come back. But even on that first night, they didn't think that was going to happen. So four of my six siblings and their families were already in Georgia. My sister, who's living in our basement and I were the only ones out of Georgia. That's a lie. I have a sister in West Virginia.

Kattie Mount [00:18:02] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:18:03] But they call us and say, you guys, we need. We don't know if he's going to make it. You need to get out here. And so we immediately make plans. And the next day we just, the two of us go out to Georgia. Her family helped watch the kids. And for a week he lived in the hospital. And we had in that week. I still look back at that week and it's hyper spirituality. Everyone, the family is all supporting each other. You're sharing stories. He's awake, but he can't talk cause he's got a breathing tube. So he's spelling out things using this board with this pen. And he can communicate very, very little. But he's asleep most of the day and sedated. And. Any hospital experiences you want to share?

Kattie Mount [00:18:53] Well, I do want to say the woman who. They were on a two lane highway and Jim was on his way to meet his boys for a movie, a late night movie.

Allan Mount [00:19:04] It wasn't even a good movie. Wolverine Origins, Wolver.

Kattie Mount [00:19:08] And they're on this two lane highway and he's this woman who's two cars, well on the other side going opposite direction. She is one on prescription pain medication that's not hers. She is driving a car that is not hers and has no insurance. And she swerves out to pass a car even though there's cars coming. And the car right in front of her, she barely misses, but then she slams into his. Jim's car. And he goes.

Allan Mount [00:19:44] Driver's side door.

Kattie Mount [00:19:45] Yeah. And he goes down an embankment and she takes off.

Allan Mount [00:19:49] So she floods.

Kattie Mount [00:19:50] So she leaves the scene and the car directly behind him is his teenage neighbor. And so he pulls off and, and goes to him and says, Mr. Mount, Mr. Mount, are you okay? And he's the one who calls the paramedics. And then he's airlifted to Atlanta. And so the way in which he was hit and everything is so traumatizing for all of us because we just can't imagine someone leaving the scene and leaving him there.

Allan Mount [00:20:25] Yeah. You know, we. This podcast hasn't been about him, and it could have been. I mean, he. He was just the rock of our family. And there was never a moment where we were, at least from the kid's perspective, in any kind of financial danger. He held us strong. And so that how he left us so suddenly and then the way that he did, seeing this powerful six foot eight man who.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Stand up guy.

Allan Mount [00:20:52] Yeah. In the last six months of his, of his life, he literally on his hands and knees was. Was building a home for a member of his ward who couldn't afford it. And he put a lot of his own money and time and effort into that. And so for a week, we were, we were dealing with the reality of where he's going to be home. This man who's been active his whole life, he's 69 when he got hit, and now he's going to be a quadriplegic. It was the same neck injury that Christopher Reeves has for a point of reference.

Allan Mount [00:21:22] He would have been able to speak again, but that was really difficult. And towards the end of it, the day that we came home from the hospital and came back to Utah, he didn't regain consciousness. And there was this feeling of, he's not going to make it.

Allan Mount [00:21:39] Nobody knew that yet, but people that had visited the room, grandchildren, our own children, excuse me, my own siblings, the next day or so after we left, said it doesn't feel like he's here anymore. So literally the day after we got back from Georgia, they called us and said, we need to make a decision. Are we going to pull life support or are we not going to? And the doctor said, his body is completely shut down. His organs aren't working. His brain, there's no activity. It's not working. So they. On Monday night, they pulled the plug. And we watched my dad die over FaceTime on Facebook. And that was really difficult.

John Dehlin [00:22:22] It was.

Allan Mount [00:22:23] I mean, clearly I remember sitting next to my sister and Kattie in the room at our Taylorsville home and turning to them and just saying, this is so stupid. Like I was. I just want to. I want to scream. And I just want to go punch something. And my sister said, go jump on my bed and yell into a pillow. And I kind of gathered myself and.

Allan Mount [00:22:45] And we hung up the phone. And, you know, there were siblings on the phone saying, go towards the light, dad. And like, we love you. We're so proud of you. And it was just. It was over the next month. Sorry. Right. Then we got the kids and we told them, like, this is what's going on. This is what happened. And we went in the backyard and just lit a campfire and roasted marshmallows and just kind of try to enjoy some time with our kids. And. And then. Oh, yeah, sorry.

Kattie Mount [00:23:17] Thanks.

Grief, Loss, and the Impact on Faith

John Dehlin [00:23:19] Kattie, what are you feeling? As soon as you. As soon as his dad was brought up, I saw you start to tear up. And that was several minutes ago. Are you comfortable sharing what you've been feeling the past few minutes?

Kattie Mount [00:23:32] Oh, no, I just. It was so hard. I was pregnant with number four at the time. And one of the days. This is actually funny, one of the days that his dad was conscious and talking to us, Allan said, dad, we're naming our baby boy after you. I was like, what?

John Dehlin [00:23:53] We are.

Kattie Mount [00:23:55] But, you know, it just didn't matter. And anyway. And it just was. It was hard. It was. I. All of those memories come flooding back to me and, you know, I've lost a loved one. I've lost lots of people. You know, I lost my sister, but, I mean, through the years, I've lost grandparents and aunts and uncles and a lot of people. So death was not something that was new to me. And I had been to a lot of funerals, but it was for Allan, wouldn't you say?

Allan Mount [00:24:29] All my grandparents had passed by that point, but the dad passing was certainly a parent's. A different deal, a little different. And, you know, that next month was. I still look back at the next month after he died with really fond memories. As strange as it sounds, his funeral was the coolest day. It was sad, of course, but, you know, me and my three brothers put on his ugly sweaters and we wrote a parody song to one of his favorite songs.

John Dehlin [00:24:57] What was the song?

Allan Mount [00:24:58] Cameron? If you're watching Remind me Tijuana or something. I don't remember exactly what the song was. If we can get you the audio, but we can release it. But we. He played, my brother Cameron played the guitar, and we. We sang the song All Three Brothers vars. And it was all centered around my dad's terrible dad jokes and.

Kattie Mount [00:25:17] And it was a celebration of life. It wasn't a funeral, it wasn't a sad thing. It was. It was a celebration. And that definitely helped. And, you know, they had only been in Georgia for like five or six years at that point.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] Yeah. So the ward community.

Kattie Mount [00:25:32] The ward community, yeah. I mean, but it was huge. I mean, he had had such an impact on them there that there were hundreds and hundreds of people who showed up for the funeral. And it was packed. And then after that, you know, so many of his loved ones wanted something in California. So Allan and I went after the funeral to do a memorial service in California with all of the ward members.

Allan Mount [00:25:56] In Santa Barbara.

Kattie Mount [00:25:57] Yeah, in Santa Barbara that he had served. And that was actually probably one of the best experiences of all of it.

Allan Mount [00:26:06] Yeah, we just open mic night. I told the story of what had happened because they needed to process their grief as well. And then everyone just got up and told stories about my dad, stories I had never heard. They had some kid that he went surfing with my dad when he was 17 and he showed up and told stories and it was really cool stuff.

Kattie Mount [00:26:26] And so, I mean, I think that his story is really important to tell because I think that it is the reason why Allan started looking into church truth claims.

Allan Mount [00:26:40] Yeah. It was the beginning of the chinks in the armor for me emotionally. Within a few months after the hyper focus on the family, everyone goes back to their own lives. And so now there's the support system. You're still grieving, but the constant messages, the constant phone calls, the checking in, that kind of goes away and you're kind of left to deal with this new reality. And I remember having a conversation with one of my family members of, like, do you feel dad? Like, I just don't even feel him anymore. I can go to the temple, I can pray. It feels so permanent. It feels like he's gone.

Allan Mount [00:27:14] And this family member said the same thing. Like, yeah, I don't really feel them. And for me, that didn't really start a conscious crisis in my mind of, oh, my goodness, maybe this isn't real, but it kind of set me up emotionally to look at things differently and think about things differently. I had a decision within a few months of my dad passing to stay with my company or go to a different company. And because of how focused I was on him, I was praying to my heavenly father. But my business minded dad was in my prayers too, of just like, help me know what, what is the best thing to do here?

Allan Mount [00:27:52] And there was absolutely a stupor of thought and not in a good way. I could not make the decision, I couldn't figure it out. And I ended up choosing to leave my company and then three days later regretting it and going back and pleading for my job back. And I'm still with the same company today.

Allan Mount [00:28:09] What field I'm in. It's a technology company. It's called In Moment. We do customer satisfaction management for companies, and I'm on the sales team. So I was in 2014. Now probably seven, eight months later.

John Dehlin [00:28:25] Wait, I just have to say.

Allan Mount [00:28:26] Yeah, please.

John Dehlin [00:28:27] The gospel element to. First of all, the Mormon element of ward members and stake members and missionary companions and family members all rallying around the death of a loved one. Like, it's just like, it's. It can't be. Probably overstated how powerful that can be. Just like a wedding.

Allan Mount [00:28:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] Just like youth programs, funerals. Right. Like, that's some of the most powerful memories you'll ever have around how Mormonism came together to not only support you and your family and honor your dad and. Right. And all the memories, but also theologically how you then would frame something so tragic.

Allan Mount [00:29:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:14] Talk about that if you want. Either of you or both of you.

Allan Mount [00:29:16] No. Yeah. I mean, I. I still had this. This big hope. It was like, hey, my dad's. My dad's graduated. He's on the other side.

John Dehlin [00:29:23] Yeah. He's serving a mission.

Allan Mount [00:29:25] Right.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] Didn't happen.

Allan Mount [00:29:26] And a few people, even back then, and this is before any of my. My faith crisis or before I knew anything about any problems with history or waking up to realities of issues or anything like that. None of that had. I'm all in. Elders, quorum president, all in. People had said a few times, whether it's through text, through Facebook, or in person said, you know, God. God needed him on the other side. Or he had a. He had a. He fulfilled his purpose here on Earth. Even back then, I didn't. I did not accept that.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] Oh, you didn't like that?

Allan Mount [00:29:58] No.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] Yeah. Some people don't like that.

Allan Mount [00:30:00] I didn't like that. It was. You know, it's usually what other people tell you.

John Dehlin [00:30:03] The breathing aren't. Aren't loving that.

Allan Mount [00:30:05] But.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] But the ward members, that's what they tell you. Yeah. Oh, you're great. It's a celebration. The Lord needed him.

Allan Mount [00:30:12] Yeah. You know, the way that he passed is probably a big part of it.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:30:16] If he would have just had a massive heart attack while he's sleeping, maybe

John Dehlin [00:30:19] I can go when he's 35.

Allan Mount [00:30:20] Right. But he's 69 and he's hit by a drunk driver.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:30:24] Driver under the influence. And so I just said, no, I don't blame God for what happened. I blame this woman who made a poor decision and ended his life early before it should have ended. I was never angry at God. I never, never even crossed my mind. It was just like we have our free agency and this lady ruined it. She, she made a big mistake.

John Dehlin [00:30:44] You were still grieving and mourning, of course. Yeah, of course. Were you to say something, Kattie?

Kattie Mount [00:30:48] No. Yeah, that's. Yep. We all went through the grief cycle. I, again, like I said, I felt like I had some of the tools to deal with his death better. I mean, I wasn't trying to compare myself, but I felt like I was dealing with it, things a little bit better only because I had lost a sister. I had lost, I had lost really important people for, for a long time before it got to that point. Not to diminish how he was feeling or how he was handling it, but it was hard. And I think everyone's always well meaning, you know, they just say things that you, that they think will help, help you. So I don't discount that at all.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] And just really quickly. In law relationships can sometimes be tricky. But since I saw you tearing up, what did Allan's dad mean to you? Oh,

Kattie Mount [00:31:36] I didn't get enough time with him because, let's see, I'd only been in the family for like five or six years when he passed and that was hard because we would spend every summer with him. But his older siblings had like years and years and years with him.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] So what do you remember about that was hard? What do you remember?

Kattie Mount [00:31:55] Oh, he's, he was larger than life and both in stature and in personality. I would get really annoyed with my kids. And he always had these great sayings like, hey, you're acting like kids again.

Allan Mount [00:32:12] Like kids again.

Kattie Mount [00:32:12] And he would take, he'd take my kids out and he'd build things with them and he'd teach them to fish and he would play with them and he wasn't, he wasn't, he didn't love the baby stage. He wasn't like a baby grandpa. He was a, you know, the kids are getting a little older and you can talk and you can reason with them and you can teach them. That's. That, that was the sweet spot for him. And my mother in law was very much the baby stage. So it was a good combination.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] But so they were assets in your life.

Kattie Mount [00:32:43] Yeah. And you know, I can't even, I mean, Allan and I made the decision to get married like really quickly. And Ellen's dad sat us down and said, maybe you should think about it. Maybe you should wait.

Allan Mount [00:32:54] Maybe next August. Wait a little.

Kattie Mount [00:32:56] Wait a little bit time. And Allan said, dad, if you want us to get married in the temple, you gotta let us get married.

Allan Mount [00:33:03] It'll be December.

Kattie Mount [00:33:03] It's gonna be December.

Allan Mount [00:33:04] You know my past.

Kattie Mount [00:33:07] And his dad, without question, just said, okay, we'll support you. We'll support you.

Allan Mount [00:33:12] Whatever you decided to do.

Kattie Mount [00:33:12] And that's how he was. Whatever you decided, when you decided to do something, he supported you full fledged. And, you know, at the beginning of our marri, he wanted to help us with finances, which I thought was really intrusive of him, but he had. Everything he did was with good intentions. And so I feel sad that my kids don't know him. My older kids barely remember him, and my younger kids don't know him at all. So I think a lot of my grief still comes from what could have been. Not necessarily what happened, but what could have been and the ripple effects that it's caused in the family.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] Yeah. There's nothing like a great grandpa or grandma kids, if they're doing it right.

Kattie Mount [00:33:53] Yeah. And they were great in loss. Yeah, yeah, they were awesome.

Allan Mount [00:33:59] Okay, let's get something lighter. Let's just talk about a faith practice.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] Let's do a quick karaoke song. Don't Stop Me now by Freddie Mercury. Go.

Kattie Mount [00:34:09] We'll do a Beach Boy song for your dad.

Allan Mount [00:34:12] California Boy.

Kattie Mount [00:34:13] Oh,

Allan Mount [00:34:17] yes. Love it.

Kattie Mount [00:34:18] Get a deep voice and bloomer. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:34:21] If any of my siblings are watching, that was that song.

Kattie Mount [00:34:24] That was it. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:34:25] This is big song. Yeah. It makes me happy when our kids like to listen to the Beatles and. Yeah, all those old guys, because my dad loved it. So to wrap up kind of the story of my dad, Kattie mentioned not processing things. Well, I didn't process very healthily. Healthily. With my dad passing for a few years, I couldn't look at pictures of him. I refused to. I basically just ignored the fact that he ever existed. That combined with the timing of my initial faith crisis was bad for my mental health. So in 2014, I was preparing for a elders quorum lesson and somehow found the gospel topics essay.

Allan's Faith Crisis Begins

John Dehlin [00:35:11] Wait, I have to pause you for a second.

Allan Mount [00:35:12] That was a pretty abrupt jump.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] No, no, no, no, no. I just. I. This is something that I just. It never ceases to amaze me. So Mormon story starts in 2005, right? Right. And of course, we've got Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My history published in 1945. We've got the Tanners doing their thing in the 60s and 70s and 80s. We've got Sunstone coming up in the, you know, dialogue in the. In the 60s, Sunstone in the mid-70s. And then we've got the whole Mormon Internet starting around 2004 with times and seasons and by common consent. And then we've got Mormon stories, and then we've got Mormon expression and.

Allan Mount [00:35:47] Right.

John Dehlin [00:35:47] And then that leads to 2013, which is Kate Kelly and then me and all this sort of CES letter, Jeremy Runnels and all that. How much of that were you aware of in 2013?

Allan Mount [00:36:02] You named one thing that we were

John Dehlin [00:36:03] aware of, which is the year that I gave my TED Talk, you know, about LGBT stuff, and the year Kate and I got our letters, you know, or the year before we got our letters.

Allan Mount [00:36:13] Sure, we got our letters. You know how we knew. We knew about one of the things that you said. I didn't know who you were at that time.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] And I'm not saying I'm a big deal. I'm just. This is about the Mormon bubble.

Kattie Mount [00:36:22] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:36:23] Who did we know out of all those things? We knew one of those things. I'd never heard of Sunstone. I'd never heard of the Tanners, none of it. Who did we know?

Kattie Mount [00:36:28] Kate Kelly served with us on our mission.

John Dehlin [00:36:30] What?

Allan Mount [00:36:31] She was.

John Dehlin [00:36:32] Yeah, she did go to Spain.

Kattie Mount [00:36:33] She went our mission.

Allan Mount [00:36:34] So we actually knew Kate really well. She was just six weeks younger than us.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] What was she like as a missionary?

Allan Mount [00:36:40] What would you expect? That's how she was. She was extremely hardworking. She should have been. She was extremely hard working, hard worker. She. We have anecdotes from a few of her district leaders where she would get transferred into. Into a new area and she would go to her. Her leader, her priesthood leader, district leader, and say, you do not need to tell me what to do.

Kattie Mount [00:37:01] You do not need my numbers.

Allan Mount [00:37:02] You. I. Look, if you just leave me alone, I will work hard and you do not have to worry about anything.

Kattie Mount [00:37:08] And she did.

Allan Mount [00:37:08] And she did. She was a very hard worker.

Kattie Mount [00:37:10] She was a very hard worker. She was a great.

Allan Mount [00:37:12] So out of everything you just mentioned, Kate was the only thing that we ever hit our radar. So we knew about ordained women. I sent her a Facebook message in the middle of ordained women and said, hey, we think. I just remember saying, good for you. Standing up for what you think. We didn't go much deeper than that, though.

Kattie Mount [00:37:28] We actually ran into her at the airport when we were on our way to see dad. It was the Day after the car accident, when we were leaving to go and see his, we ran into her in the airport.

Allan Mount [00:37:37] Dad.

Kattie Mount [00:37:37] We ran into her at the airport

Allan Mount [00:37:38] on the way to Georgia. Georgia.

Kattie Mount [00:37:39] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:37:40] So we said hi and good for you.

Kattie Mount [00:37:41] So that was our knowledge. Kate was the only person we knew.

Allan Mount [00:37:44] Yeah. Crazy, right?

John Dehlin [00:37:46] And she hadn't gotten her letter yet by 2013. Not yet. So I'm just like. And Even today, in 2019, 98% of US Mormons are oblivious to any of the stuff that we just mentioned.

Allan Mount [00:37:57] Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:58] Because the bubble's so strong.

Allan Mount [00:38:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:00] And you were living in Utah this whole time.

Allan Mount [00:38:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:02] It's just crazy.

Allan Mount [00:38:04] Right.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] I'm never going to stop being stunned by how. By just how protected members are from what's going on.

Allan Mount [00:38:14] Right.

John Dehlin [00:38:15] Or the truth, or other versions of the truth, or history or cultural stuff. It's just a bubble. So you're in the bubble. What happens?

Allan Mount [00:38:23] Yeah, I mean, I'm preparing for an elders quorum lesson. Kattie's out and watching something on the tv. The kids are in bed.

Kattie Mount [00:38:30] I have a newborn baby and it's 2013.

Allan Mount [00:38:33] This is 14 now.

Kattie Mount [00:38:34] 14, 2014, I have a newborn baby.

John Dehlin [00:38:36] Okay.

Kattie Mount [00:38:37] And 14.

Allan Mount [00:38:37] I stumble on the gospel topics essays as I'm preparing. I don't remember what the lesson was about, but I read in what, 20 minutes. I read three of the essays. The light ones, John, Just Polygamy and Nauvoo, Race in the Priesthood and Book of Abraham were the three that I read.

Allan Mount [00:38:57] None of the heaviness, I say sarcastically. I read them and my mouth was just on the floor, really, just on the floor of. Oh, my goodness. I had no idea. In fact, one of the central moments for me was I didn't know that Joseph was polygamist until I read that essay.

Allan Mount [00:39:20] The exact opposite. I had an experience on my mission where I bore testimony, as odd as it sounds, of his monogamy to some Jehovah's Witnesses that were pestering us on the street, saying that he married women that were already married and married all these women. I said, you're crazy. I bore testimony and felt the spirit tell me. No, what you're saying is true. He was a monogamist. So when I read that on the church's website, it shook me hard and I kind of put it down, went out to Kattie, sat on the couch and just said, honey, did you know?

Allan Mount [00:39:56] And I rattled off probably what I don't remember exactly. I rattled off a few of these points. Joseph married the women that were already married. He married a 14 year old when he was 37, the book of Abraham, like the church says, it's not written by Abraham. What is going on? And I think she can sense the panic in my voice.

Allan Mount [00:40:16] And also, this is the first time we've ever deviated from anything. It wasn't even a deviation. It was just like I was reading on the church website and. And her response, her response was, if you ever leave the church, I will divorce you. It is. That's it, it's over now. Give your disclaimer.

Kattie Mount [00:40:35] My disclaimer is I don't. I have zero knowledge of that conversation. I was sleep deprived.

John Dehlin [00:40:41] I had a brand new baby, baby brain.

Kattie Mount [00:40:44] At the time, Allan had been in a position at his work where he was literally gone every week. He was traveling out of the country, he was in the country, he was gone all the time. I really have like no memory of this at all. What I do remember of that time specifically is that he had not been processing his dad's death well. He had been looking for answers as far as like afterlife because he couldn't feel his dad. And I thought this all attributed to this one. One thing. So him saying that, I don't know. I guess I didn't know how to say what to say or how to handle that.

John Dehlin [00:41:31] Sure. Well, yeah, because who expects it? Right? And your world was Mormonism. It's your whole world.

Kattie Mount [00:41:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:37] Really quickly, as you're reading the essays that 2014 day, what are the meta thoughts going through your brain?

Allan Mount [00:41:44] Gosh, it happens.

John Dehlin [00:41:46] Polygamy, book of Abraham and the thoughts, like, it can be any thought. It can be like, oh, I didn't know this, or oh, that's interesting. Or oh, I wonder how I'm going to reconcile that.

Allan Mount [00:41:55] Or oh, yeah. The thought was, oh, this is very different than I've ever learned. It was more than. This is interesting. It was. This could be an issue. This is really weird bad stuff. The. Her comments stopped me dead in my tracks though. So when she said that I was.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] You were still Elders Quorum president.

Allan Mount [00:42:16] Yeah, I mean, I was only. I was less than a year.

John Dehlin [00:42:19] You weren't like, were you. Were you sinning? Were you looking to sin? Were you sneaking a beer here and there?

Allan Mount [00:42:24] Like, I think I was watching Breaking Bad at the time. That was about it. I never know. No word of wisdom.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] Were you bitter? Somebody says, oh, what's your dad? You were mad at God because your dad had passed away?

Allan Mount [00:42:37] No.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] Somebody wants to like, pin it to some unworthiness or lack of faithfulness.

Allan Mount [00:42:43] Right. I think, no, there was no Sin going on my dad's passing. The only thing that. That introduced to me, it wasn't even doubts. It was just emotional vulnerability is what it introduced. So I was hard working as Elders Quorum president when, when I found the essays originally, and this is in 2014, she says her comment and I right then and there say, I'm not. I'm put. That's on the shelf. I'm not even thinking about that. I'm not willing. For me, it was. It doesn't matter what is right or wrong or true or false. It doesn't matter even if it's all made up, I'm not going to risk my marriage, so I'm not going there.

Allan Mount [00:43:26] So for the next two years, two years, two more years as Elders Quorum president. So three years total. So I kept going as Elders Quorum president. We kept serving in our ward and I didn't look at anything else. I just kind of bore down. But because I think of all of the issues with my dad and now I'm feeling like there's this question in the back of my mind that I'm not able to answer. My mental health just plummeted.

John Dehlin [00:43:54] Meaning what?

Kattie Mount [00:43:55] So it manifested in physical ways. So he would have heart palpitations. He never ever had panic attacks. Not ever had. And then all of a sudden he was having panic attacks late at night. And I would call his mom to like ask what I should do for him because that was new for the.

John Dehlin [00:44:13] For us, this strong athlete, UCLA, BYU 67 athlete. Like you probably weren't used to that physical.

Allan Mount [00:44:22] Either of us. No. And yeah, I remember having this panic attack and I'm 33 years old in the fetal position with my wife handing my mom on the phone, and my mom's trying to talk me down. And that was a really scary moment. That, that full fledged panic attack was scary. We had some live ins. My sister, who lived with us in the mother in law apartment was now in Georgia helping my mom because my mom, we didn't want her to be alone and she didn't want to be alone. So my sister still lives with my mom to this day. And it's great. I love you, Colleen, if you're listening. And. But we had another couple move in and at the time of this panic attack. Oh, it was Bert Fuller. He's been on Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:45:01] Yeah. Shout out to Bert. We love you.

Kattie Mount [00:45:03] Yeah, we love you, Bert.

Allan Mount [00:45:04] So Bert came up and gave me a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] And Charlie.

Allan Mount [00:45:06] And Charlie. Absolutely. Bert came up and gave me a blessing for that panic attack.

John Dehlin [00:45:10] And he was in your ward?

Allan Mount [00:45:12] Yeah, he was in our ward. He was. He lived in our house for a year.

John Dehlin [00:45:15] Oh.

Kattie Mount [00:45:15] They lived in our basement apartment.

Allan Mount [00:45:19] Love the Fullers.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] That must have been fun.

Allan Mount [00:45:21] Oh, both of them. Oh, my goodness.

Kattie Mount [00:45:24] It was a lot. Yeah, it was. We'd have dinner together, and, man, we learned a lot.

John Dehlin [00:45:29] Very smart.

Kattie Mount [00:45:30] Yeah. Bert and Charlie are both very intelligent.

John Dehlin [00:45:32] They're very smart and kind. Or at least from what I can tell, they are.

Allan Mount [00:45:36] We love them.

Kattie Mount [00:45:36] We love them.

Allan Mount [00:45:37] So I went to a feeling, some anxiety and some depression. I went to a.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Okay, really quick as you're having this panic attack or these bouts of. Is it like, oh, my gosh, the church isn't true?

Allan Mount [00:45:51] That's not even in my mind.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] See? So it's subconscious.

Allan Mount [00:45:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:56] How did you conceptualize it? At the time?

Allan Mount [00:45:58] The church didn't even play into it.

John Dehlin [00:46:00] You're just like, I'm having panic attacks. I don't know why.

Allan Mount [00:46:02] I don't know why.

John Dehlin [00:46:03] What's wrong with me?

Allan Mount [00:46:04] Work is stressful because I'm traveling a lot. We've got a new baby, four kids.

John Dehlin [00:46:08] But do you think it was tied to the faith crisis stuff?

Allan Mount [00:46:10] 100%.

John Dehlin [00:46:11] Okay. But sometimes.

Kattie Mount [00:46:12] Now, at the time, we both thought it was. He hadn't worked through his dad's death.

John Dehlin [00:46:17] Oh, so it's like it was all tied to that.

Allan Mount [00:46:20] Yeah. I had this. Those few years I did have in my mind of. I know that there's this burning question about the church that I'm just not even going to address. So I had pushed it so far down that I wasn't even thinking about it, but it was there.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] I have to tell you, listeners are resonating. Jennifer Corbett tune writes. That's what I've been struggling with now, is the anxiety, panic attacks, and irrational fear.

Allan Mount [00:46:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:46] Becky Reed Linford writes, the anxiety and panic are terrible. So sorry. Lisa writes, it's like a death finding out the truth. Lisa says, I found. I just found the essays in September. I was a TBM for 44 years and was the Relief Society president.

Allan Mount [00:47:06] So.

John Dehlin [00:47:06] So anyway, and then. And then Charlene writes, leaving the church. Church community is very similar to the grief process of the death of a loved one.

Allan Mount [00:47:13] Right.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] She's connecting the church experience with your dad.

Allan Mount [00:47:18] With your dad.

John Dehlin [00:47:20] And then Rosa writes, growing up fundamentalist. I'm assuming fundamentals Mormon. It is so strange, interesting. Funny that you didn't know Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Those facts were on the table.

Allan Mount [00:47:30] We're the table. She says, Right.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] In my upbringing.

Allan Mount [00:47:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:33] So anyway, Just, just incorporating. Oh, and then Janet writes, all that information is out there, but I didn't have the desire to look and be deceived. We were taught not to look.

Allan Mount [00:47:45] Right.

John Dehlin [00:47:45] So just, anyway, just incorporating some of the comments from listeners. Okay, so you're in the thick of it.

Allan Mount [00:47:51] In the thick of it.

John Dehlin [00:47:51] For those you're not sure why, you're just thinking, yeah, so mental illness, depression, anxiety, that was tough.

Allan Mount [00:47:58] I had a few bad experiences with a medical professional who kind of treated me like I was crazy. He prescribed some pretty low dose medication to help with anxiety. And I had a weird reaction. And whether it's medication or not, I went to him and said I had this weird reaction. And the way he treated me was like, okay, you're just, you're a patient just looking to for troubles. And I'm like, I'm never going back. I'm never going back. And so at that moment, this is probably in 2015 or so. I don't remember quite exactly the timeline, but I thought, I'm just going to deal with it and figure out how to fix it myself.

John Dehlin [00:48:37] Like white, white knuckle it.

Allan Mount [00:48:38] Yeah. And so by 20s, by the end of 2016, for whatever reason, well, we moved. We did move to it.

Kattie Mount [00:48:46] Yeah, we moved to Murray in the spring of 2016. The place we were renting, he was coming back from out of state, so we had to move. So we found this great place in Murray, right between Fashion Place Mall and Wheeler Farm. Wheeler farm, great 1950s neighborhood. And it is. I mean, all the originals still live there.

Allan Mount [00:49:08] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:49:08] And if they haven't, it's their kids that moved in. So find this great neighborhood and we get called, we move into the ward, and right off the bat they call me as the primary president. And I had never served in primary before. Much like Allan's experience, I had no clue who was in the ward. I didn't know anything about anyone. And so I had this. Had this like, girls night out party where I invited all the women who were my age or, you know, a little younger, a little older, and so I could vet out who I wanted to call.

Allan Mount [00:49:41] That's right.

Kattie Mount [00:49:42] And so I got called as a primary president and Allan got put in as an elders quorum.

Allan Mount [00:49:49] Again, that was, I remember, one of the first open and honest comments that Kattie has ever expressed to me about, I don't know if it's categorized as an issue, but right after the bishop told her about being primary president, I got a call from the stake president saying, we'd like you and your wife to come in and for an interview. And we went in thinking he was just going to ask me if I was going to be supportive of Kattie's primary president call. That is a busy calling. So we went into the meeting thinking that that's what the call was, but really it was. I was being called into another elders quorum presidency. And you remember after you kind of admitted to me, like, that's a little bit frustrating. I'm called as primary president, and you're

Kattie Mount [00:50:36] called as a counselor.

Allan Mount [00:50:37] You're called as a counselor in an elders quorum, but you're the one that gets an audience with the stake president, and they don't ask you if you're going to support, but they ask her if she's gonna support me. So that was a little bit frustrating.

John Dehlin [00:50:48] Was that influenced by Kid Kelly or was that just your personal.

Kattie Mount [00:50:51] I think it was just my own personal feeling. I was a little bit annoyed. That and the disparity. Yeah, just that, like, I was playing a supportive role. And that's fine. I don't mind that. But I felt like women should get the equal opportunity for the man to be the supportive role.

Allan Mount [00:51:08] I know that's a pretty radical view that she shares. Women should be equal. Yeah. So, I mean, in that new ward, throughout the rest of 2016, the anxiety, the depression, it just kind of went away. I don't really can't put a reason why. It just did. And at the beginning of 2017, like, as soon as my brain had kind of unraveled everything and I was feeling better, I thought, I need to figure this church thing out. I need to go back to the essays and read them and really study and really figure this out. So I.

John Dehlin [00:51:43] This is two years ago.

Allan Mount [00:51:44] Yeah. This is beginning of 2017. So I turned to Kattie in the car in our driveway one day in January 2017, and I say that I'm like, I'm going to figure this church thing out. Remember that? I found these essays. I'm going to go back and read them. And I just want you to know I'm now in a place where I'm going to go wherever the truth points me. And that could lead me out, that could lead me harder in wherever it points me. That's what I'm going to do.

John Dehlin [00:52:11] And, Kattie, what was that like for you?

Kattie Mount [00:52:14] I actually didn't have a problem with it. I said to him, I felt a lot of peace when we talked about it. And I said, yeah, go for it. Go ahead. In my mind, I thought, well, what's the Worst that could happen. And I also felt. But I felt overall just peace that whatever. Whatever was gonna happen will be why it should happen. And so I told Allan. I told Allan that, well, I feel a lot of peace about this. You should go ahead and do it. So he did.

Allan Mount [00:52:45] Yeah, so I did.

John Dehlin [00:52:45] You got the green light.

Allan Mount [00:52:46] I got the green light.

Kattie Mount [00:52:48] Well, yes. Well, I mean, we made a fatal mistake because what we should have decided on is going through the information together rather than right from the beginning. Right from the beginning.

John Dehlin [00:53:00] Well, not all believing spouses want to go through and.

Allan Mount [00:53:03] But I never asked the question, and she never thought of it, and I never thought. And maybe you wouldn't have wanted to.

Kattie Mount [00:53:08] Maybe not.

Allan Mount [00:53:08] But we really feel strongly that that didn't work out. It should have, at least.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] That wasn't optimal, you're saying?

Kattie Mount [00:53:14] Yeah, that was not optimal.

Allan Mount [00:53:15] That it should have been, at least. Hey, I need to go through this. I would love to do it with you so we can make sure that we're reading the right things and making the right conclusions and let's do this together. That never came out of my mouth and never entered my head. It was just. I went through this a few years ago. I'm going to finish what I started and hit pause on.

Digging Into Church History and Difficult Issues

John Dehlin [00:53:35] Okay, so you dig in.

Allan Mount [00:53:37] So I dig in for six months. Yeah. I started with the essays, did all the footnotes, and followed those footnotes. CES letter played a part of it as well. I started listening to Mormon stories. The first Bill Real as well. Mormon discussions. The first few months, I would be super hyper aware of the logo of the podcast I'm listening to showing on my phone.

John Dehlin [00:54:01] And you didn't want her note.

Allan Mount [00:54:03] I didn't. I don't even really know why. It was just one of these, like, I don't want her to think I'm obsessed with this, that I'm being led astray or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:54:11] It's a little bit like porn.

Allan Mount [00:54:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:13] Like spiritual porn.

Allan Mount [00:54:14] It's a little.

John Dehlin [00:54:15] Yeah, you're embarrassed. It's dark, it's hidden, it's secret. It's learning. It's. It's. It's.

Allan Mount [00:54:21] I wanted.

Kattie Mount [00:54:21] He was obsessed.

John Dehlin [00:54:22] Exciting.

Allan Mount [00:54:23] I didn't want her to freak out. And so, I mean, you talk about. This is a common tale. When I decided to jump in, both feet into the deep end, it was, you know, if I was busy at work or busy with family stuff, it was four hours a day of studying. If I wasn't and I had time, it was eight hours. And you do that for a year. I mean, within a month, you have learned more than about the church than you have your entire life.

Allan Mount [00:54:52] And it mounts so quickly. Within that first month, I don't have all the clear memories on how it happened, but me and my brother Cameron were going through the same thing at the same time, I believe. He made a comment to me about, did you know Joseph used a rock in the hat? And I went, whoa. Yeah, I do. I just learned that. Where did you learn that? And he tells me, and now all of a sudden, I've got a very close.

Allan Mount [00:55:21] You know, my best friend in the world outside of my wife is my brother Cameron. We've done a podcast together for 10 years on what. It's stupid. It's about video games. We actually.

John Dehlin [00:55:31] There's nothing wrong with video games.

Allan Mount [00:55:33] No, I know, but it's. It's. Anyway, we haven't recorded in like a year and a half, but it used to be a weekly thing and we would do parody songs, and it was a big thing. It really brought us together. So when I. That was a big moment for me to be able to look at him and say, oh, my goodness, we're going through this same thing. He's the same brother that played volleyball with me at ucla. So very, very quickly. And you feel free to ask any detailed questions about it, but very, very quickly. I mean, it just all collapses so fast.

John Dehlin [00:56:04] Were there some stories or podcast episodes or essays or issues, historical or doctrinal, that were really, really big for you? Like, some. It's Tom Phillips or some. It's Jeremy Runnels or some. It's, you know, did Hans Mattson. Were there any big things?

Allan Mount [00:56:22] Yeah, the. The biggest. The big. The number one thing for me was polygamy. I think a lot of it because I had such a specific spiritual experience that when I learned about how polygamy actually went down again from the church's mouth, that directly contradicted what the spirit had told me. So all of a sudden, now I'm doubting. How do I know any of my spiritual experience are valid if the church is now contradictory?

John Dehlin [00:56:53] Because polygamy can't be true. Because. Why?

Allan Mount [00:56:55] Well, I had had this experience on my mission where I bore testimony of Joseph's monogamy.

John Dehlin [00:56:59] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:57:00] And the spirit told me what I was saying was true, or at least I had made that leap.

John Dehlin [00:57:04] Yeah. Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:57:04] So at that point I went, oh, my goodness. I'm not denying. And this is actually a pretty key point of our story, and what I think helps our mixed faith marriage work is I don't look at any of our experiences, the blessings she received, any of those experiences, and deny them and say that didn't happen or anything.

John Dehlin [00:57:22] That was just your brain or that was just.

Allan Mount [00:57:24] I don't. I don't do that. I had the experience on my mission. I said what I said and I felt what I felt. I made a leap that because of those feelings, what I was saying is true. When I realized that the entire way that I knew the church was true was no longer reliable, those personal witnesses, that's when it just started collapsing. And learning about the Book of Abraham was a huge one. And it's a very complex issue, but it was so easy to see once the. Once that spiritual witness was no longer reliable as being truthful.

John Dehlin [00:58:03] What was your conclusion about polygamy and what was your conclusion about the Book of Abraham?

Allan Mount [00:58:07] Conclusion about polygamy in it was never ever once came from God. It was never or never commanded of God. And I came to that conclusion extremely quickly.

John Dehlin [00:58:17] Which meant what?

Allan Mount [00:58:19] Well, at the time, there was a very quick moment where I thought, Joseph screwed up. He was a prophet and he made an excuse to practice this awful thing. And so he's fallen. And there was a brief moment where I went, oh, shoot, we're in the wrong church. Maybe it's the community of Christ because, you know, they've rejected that from the get go. That conclusion only lasted a fleeting moment because of all the other issues in

John Dehlin [00:58:48] the Book of Abraham. What did you conclude about that?

Allan Mount [00:58:51] Just wrong. He made a big guess, and it was not the right guess.

John Dehlin [00:58:56] It wasn't a translation?

Allan Mount [00:58:57] No, it's not a translation. It's reading the words. Here's a fun story. So I'm still in the Elder scorm presidency. In 2017. I was all the way until they kind of combined the high priests and elder Scorm. In 2018, I was still in the presidency. That's after we started our podcast. But I was still in the presidency. In October of 2017, it was my turn to teach elders quorum. I had been speaking with the first counselor in the Stake Presidency about all of my issues, and I wanted to teach a lesson on the gospel topics essays.

Allan Mount [00:59:34] I worked with him to make sure he didn't think I was doing anything fishy. And I actually had. I actually had him attend the lesson that I gave. But in that room, about 20 people. I asked the question, who knows what the gospel topics essays are?

Allan Mount [00:59:51] And two people raised their hands. Me and the first counselor of the Stake Presidency. No one else had even heard of them. And so the entire lesson was about why people leave the church. At the time, my brother Cameron had just left the church with his whole family.

Allan Mount [01:00:11] And I had him write a little paragraph of why he left the church. I asked the elders quorum, why do people leave? And there this is before. I introduced the question of the essays. And they gave all the reasons you would expect.

Allan Mount [01:00:25] Well, I have a friend and his wife cheated on him and that led him out of the church because he was so bitter. And he blamed God. One of my friends is just lazy, doesn't want to come to church on Sundays.

Allan Mount [01:00:37] One of my friends never had a testimony to begin with. One of my friends is saying all the tropes. One person at the end says, well, I know someone that left because of church history. And I went, oh, okay, we got there. Now let me ask the question about church Gospel topics essays. I read the titles to every single one of the essays and just said, these are the essay titles. And I just read them.

John Dehlin [01:01:02] What you didn't understand is those weren't meant to be read by members.

Allan Mount [01:01:06] Well, yeah, according to Stephen Snow, right? And so I turned to my. Not my wife, she wasn't there. Men only. And I turned to my home teaching companion, who kind of has this puzzling look on his face, and I say, do you have a question? He's like, that last one. The historicity of the Book of Abraham. What is that all about?

Allan Mount [01:01:25] And I was prepared to talk about any one of the essays, but I said, that's a good question. I just read two paragraphs. I read the intro to the Book of Abraham that says it was written by Abraham himself. And then the paragraph that says it was not written by Abraham.

Allan Mount [01:01:40] And I said, basically the punchline of the entire lesson was, when someone leaves, it's not as simple as something else is. Something terrible is going on and they're making bad mistakes. Can you see whether you agree with their conclusion or not? Can you see how someone would read these two things and go, wait a minute, this. This doesn't quite work.

Allan Mount [01:02:02] Let's just. Let's listen to people. Let's. Let's hear them out. If you know someone that has left, ask them why and just listen to them. I was still in at the time, right? I had made a number of conclusions, but I was. I had an active temple recommend, John. I still have an active temple recommend until August.

Allan Mount [01:02:19] They may have disengaged it or whatever, canceled it. But I had people afterwards saying, thank you. That was great. That was a really good lesson. It's important to think about these things. And so the essays and the history, I mean, played a huge part of it from all of 2017.

Allan Mount [01:02:38] Dark Night of the Soul moments were. Were big and. And Kattie had to kind of not know what was going on in my head, but see how difficult this was. And seeing some of the same ways that I was grieving my father, now I'm grieving my faith, but not really talking about it much was a huge, huge deal. And so 2017 was kind of the dark year.

Allan Mount [01:03:03] There was. There was a number of. We didn't. I mean, we didn't tell anybody. On her side of the family, on my side of the family during 2017, on my side of the family. 2017 was a crazy year where my brother and his wife, they left the church in April. Ish. And it was just a clean cut. And they were the first ones to do it. They said our whole family is out.

Allan Mount [01:03:27] Social issues, LGBT issues were a huge part of it for both of them, but particularly for my brother's wife, Brittany. And history was a huge deal for my brother Cameron. There was a moment, speaking with a member of Kattie's family, that I was introduced to the idea of gaslighting for the first time, where very early in 2017, Cameron had talked about the rock and the hat, and he had walked me through that logical process of, like, man, they carried these plates around and inscribed them for a millennia. For a thousand years they did this.

Allan Mount [01:04:06] And just to. For Moroni to hike them all the way up to New York and bury them in the hill, and then they're pulled out of the ground. And now Joseph's. Now he finally has them, and he doesn't use them. He doesn't use the plates. He uses this Seer stone. And I remember having a conversation with Kattie was there and saying, my brother's leaving the church and why? Well, it's lots of history issues and, well, what's one of them? And I'm like, well, and I told him to rock Seer stone. Well, didn't he know that growing up? No, I didn't. Like, you didn't, Kattie, did you?

Allan Mount [01:04:46] No, I didn't either. Well, you must. You just must not have been paying attention. That Sunday those words came out and it was like, oh, shoot, this is how it's going to be type of thing. It was a little taste of things.

John Dehlin [01:04:58] Okay, so you're saying you told your family first but didn't tell hers. Is that what you said? Did I hear that right?

Allan Mount [01:05:03] On my ish. My family kind of Knew because my brother left.

John Dehlin [01:05:07] So I just want to say having a father slash grandfather die.

Allan Mount [01:05:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:05:13] Makes it a totally different thing, discussing a faith crisis because everybody's hanging on to the gospel as the way that they're going to see dad or grandpa again or husband.

Allan Mount [01:05:26] Right.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] And so that's really intense.

Allan Mount [01:05:28] Yeah. And it was my side of the family that started leaving the church in 2017.

John Dehlin [01:05:36] You had at least one ally.

Allan Mount [01:05:38] At least one. Right. And then a few months after that, my sister had a son that came out as gay and her husband was bishop just a few months prior.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] My goodness.

Allan Leaves the Church

Allan Mount [01:05:50] Just a few months prior to his son coming out, he had served a full five years and was released east.

Kattie Mount [01:05:54] Well, three years, I think.

Allan Mount [01:05:56] Oh, well, they serve shorter in back east.

Kattie Mount [01:05:58] No, I think they combined the two wards.

Allan Mount [01:06:01] Okay. That's right. I don't know all the details, but they. They tried hard to reconcile that and ultimately decided to support their son and just couldn't make it work, so they left as well.

John Dehlin [01:06:11] So that's three mountain siblings all leaving in the course of a year. Yeah, this gotta be harder.

Allan Mount [01:06:17] A fourth as well. So four out of six then.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] That can't have been fun for your mom.

Allan Mount [01:06:22] No. And that's. That's the hardest part. I mean.

John Dehlin [01:06:24] And the other two believing siblings.

Allan Mount [01:06:26] Yeah, it's super hard. My oldest brother, Jason, who's 59 years today.

John Dehlin [01:06:31] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:06:32] He's the current bishop of the ward that four of my siblings live in. And my mom is in Atlanta. Yeah. They all live in an Atlanta ward.

John Dehlin [01:06:40] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:06:40] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:06:40] Okay.

Allan Mount [01:06:41] Carrollton. Carrollton, Utah.

John Dehlin [01:06:43] He's a doctor.

Allan Mount [01:06:44] He's a doctor. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:44] Oh, my gosh.

Allan Mount [01:06:45] He's. He's. And I'll tell you what, he. You. You want to describe as a post Mormon, someone that you would trust your family to be in the ward of what kind of bishop and what kind of characteristics you want in. In your bishop. And he's who you would describe. He's a. He's a very empathetic, very loving, very caring man. And so nothing but great respect for him.

Allan Mount [01:07:10] There hasn't been any. You know, there's difficulties, particularly with my mom. And not. No. Frayed. We're very respectful, but we clearly disagree. It's been extremely difficult, understandably so, for her. And that's. I mean, for us. We just kind of go, we're not doing this to hurt you. I swear. We're not doing this despite you. I'm so sorry. There's a feeling of if. If my dad never would have gotten hit by the car. This, none of this would have happened. And so let's blame her. That Helen is her name. And it's just like, I didn't leave because of that, but it maybe left me emotionally, you know, receptive to other ideas.

Kattie's Experience as the Believing Spouse

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 1139

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sa. Kattie, I'm dying to know. And also, Lisa's asking, actually, somebody's asking, let's see, somebody's saying, how was. How was it for Kattie? Oh, it was Janet. What was Kattie feeling during this time? So why don't you jump in? What was it like to see him go down the rabbit hole and then to see him kind of lose his faith? What was that? Tell from your. Like, go back and tell the story from your point of view. Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:00:57] So we have that moment in the car where he explains that he wants to go and do research. And I feel really calm and cool and collected about it. And I say, yeah, go for it. And this is probably February of 2017.

Kattie Mount [00:01:11] And to be quite honest, I had no idea that he was listening or studying for four to eight hours a day. No clue. Nothing is being said on his end and there's no communication through that. We decide that we are going to go visit his family in Georgia over the summer. And so we pack up the kids. We couldn't afford plane tickets at the time, so we pack up the kids and we have a long drive ahead of us to Georgia.

Kattie Mount [00:01:40] And so through the long drive. Oh, but right before this trip, Allan asked me to read Rough Stone Rolling. And he qualifies it by saying, you know, he's an active member.

John Dehlin [00:01:55] Patriarch.

Kattie Mount [00:01:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] President.

Kattie Mount [00:01:57] Yeah, right. Like, he sold a Deseret book. He sold a Deseret book. You could totally read it. And I said, okay, well, I start reading it on the car ride and I keep falling asleep because it's not super engaging. It's not a page turner.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] No. Lafon Brody is a much more interesting book.

Kattie Mount [00:02:14] Well, and the book itself, it is a brick. And it just. It's just information after information. And I'm thinking to myself, why there's nothing that's standing out. I actually had known that Joseph Smith had had other wives. So, like, that to me wasn't shocking. You know that. Anyway, so we start talking about the book and about all sorts of things gospel related.

Kattie Mount [00:02:47] And I had no idea where he was. I mean, this was six months after he started researching heavily. And for some reason we started talking about baptism and my daughter getting baptized and how Allan didn't believe that she should get baptized at the age of eight.

Kattie Mount [00:03:06] And that was like, shocking to me. Shocking revelation. And I didn't. I, like, could not process why he felt the way he felt. Well, he had done six months of research and had formulated these opinions and ideas and without me, which is fine, but I wasn't taken along the ride and I wasn't clued in.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] Which made you feel what it felt?

Kattie Mount [00:03:29] I felt betrayed.

John Dehlin [00:03:31] You felt betrayed?

Kattie Mount [00:03:32] Because I felt like how dare you not tell me your feelings along the way or what you had found. And I know that he probably felt really worried that I was going to leave him because of what I had. The exchange we had and then the research he had found. Well, why would he tell me? You know, he wanted to try and cover that up to save me.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] Yeah.

Kattie Mount [00:03:59] But here it was on this drive, coming all out in full force and I was devastated, like, to say the least. It hurt my feelings that he had had someone to talk to. He had had his brother to talk to along the way. At the time I, I thought that his brother influenced him to.

John Dehlin [00:04:19] Yeah. You always want to find someone to blame, right?

Kattie Mount [00:04:21] Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I did. I felt, I felt like he was being his brother was a bad influence.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] Right.

Kattie Mount [00:04:28] And because I wanted to, wasn't John de Lynn. At least it wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault.

John Dehlin [00:04:35] Thanks, Cameron. I appreciate that.

Allan Mount [00:04:37] Took some of the heat off, but

Kattie Mount [00:04:39] I did, I was really worried. And then here we are driving to a place where all of his family's gonna be there and he's gonna be with his brother who is likely going to influence him further.

Allan Mount [00:04:50] Right.

Kattie Mount [00:04:50] His brother and wife had already left and I thought, okay, this is it. And I remember towards the end of our trip just going to my, his oldest brother. His wife is a good friend of mine as sister in law. But I went to her and I just, I cried. I, I told her that things were really bad and I didn't understand why he felt the way he did. And I didn't know if we were going to make it through this, how we were going to navigate it. I was really, really disheartened and she was the only person that I confided in.

Kattie Mount [00:05:29] My family is very tbm, all of them. So I didn't feel like I would have an ally going to them. And I was say, you know, when you, my parents brought us up to know that if you have a problem with your spouse, you work it out with your spouse. You don't work it out in front of other people.

Kattie Mount [00:05:53] Save a therapist, but you don't like air your dirty laundry in front of other people if you have an issue. So I thought to myself, well, we need to come to a conclusion before I tell anybody. So I'm not going to tell my family, I'm not going to tell my friends. I'm not going to tell anybody. And I didn't. I kept it secret for more secrets. More secrets. Yep, for a long time. And after his sister, after his sister in law heard me pour my heart out, they decided that they were going to come to Utah right. Almost immediately after we came home, just so that his brother and her can spend some one time with us.

Kattie Mount [00:06:36] Which I thought was like such a, like that's something that a sibling would do. You know, they just drop everything to come out and help whatever problem's happening. So they did that and they came out and helped talk through a lot of this stuff with me, talk through this stuff with Allan. And we decided at that time we need to sit down with the bishop and the stake president and start talking to them.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] Before we do, can I ask a question?

Kattie Mount [00:07:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:06] So one of the big pitfalls and you know, there'll be some kind of sharing moments or coaching moments or whatever throughout these remaining hours. One of the big common things that I experienced with the faithful member of the mixed faith spouse is sort of the fight or flight mechanism, triggering, in other words, the same mechanism that when you hear a rustling in the bush on the Savannah 10,000 years ago, that would make you realize you're either going to fight the lion or run from the lion or the. Where the blood drains from your brain and you're breathing harder and your heart's beating. That's that system, the fight or flight amygdala system in your brain kicks in for the believing member and everything seems like it's a potential threat where you're just viewing again brothers or podcast hosts or Internet information.

John Dehlin [00:07:59] Everything's a threat, an existential threat to your souls, to your salvation, to your marriage, to your family, to your children. And so, you know, from the believing perspective, it can be just walking around sort of trauma slash paranoia slash anxiety, fear.

Kattie Mount [00:08:18] Right.

John Dehlin [00:08:19] Were you dealing with that? Yeah, and I'm just, I'm trying to talk about that, if you will, because that's. How can you. You know, so often the non believer is like trying to read rough stone rolling and, and you're like, I don't, you're trying to get me not to believe. And then you start going the other direction and then that's when the backfire effect starts to kick in and you start to entrench more and go to the temple extra and pray extra because he's leaving the faith. And it can be just this really toxic emotional paradigm of repulsion and of defensiveness and anger and war, kind of emotional war. How much of that Were you experiencing or not?

Kattie Mount [00:09:01] I think that I, like, emotionally I was so torn because I could tell Allan was angry and that hurt my feelings. I could tell he was hurt by some of the history that hurt my feelings. Everything he told me hurt my feelings. Everything was a personal attack on me. It was something I believed for so

John Dehlin [00:09:27] long, and it felt personal.

Kattie Mount [00:09:29] It felt personal.

John Dehlin [00:09:30] You could be talking about Joseph Smith or polygamy or the church, but you internalized it as an attack on you.

Kattie Mount [00:09:37] Well, not necessarily on me, just that I took it personally. Right. So I didn't think, like, he was doing it to hurt me. At no point during this whole faith journey did I ever feel like he was doing something intentional to hurt me. Not at all. But I doubled down. Like, early on I doubled down and I.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] Meaning what?

Kattie Mount [00:10:03] Meaning, like he would bring something up and I'll say, like, where's that source from? You know? And it was very rare when he would bring something up because he knew I just learned the reaction.

Allan Mount [00:10:16] That reaction. So, I mean, one of the key things, and then the next part we're gonna talk about is trying to pull them over to your side using truth claims. Yeah, not gonna happen. It does the opposite.

John Dehlin [00:10:28] Backfire effect.

Allan Mount [00:10:29] And there's more effective ways of actually introducing some of these ideas. So.

Kattie Mount [00:10:34] And he was. And I mean, I was angry and he was angry. Right. We were both hurting for different reasons, but we couldn't recognize or validate that hurt on the other side.

John Dehlin [00:10:47] Right. You're angry because he betrayed all the agreements. He broke the contract. He's threatening the existential spiritual future of the family. And Allan, I'm guessing you're angry because the person you love and care about most isn't willing to listen and learn and validate and arrive at the same conclusions you arrived at.

Allan Mount [00:11:05] Yeah, Most of the anger was more towards. Why was this hidden? It was more focused on anger at the church.

Kattie Mount [00:11:13] It was more.

Allan Mount [00:11:14] No, I mean, I was. I think frustrated was about as strong as word I could use. Just like, why won't you just do this? But the anger wasn't directed at Kattie. It was directed at the church. I mean, that's led me to getting involved in things like Sam Young's protect LDS children. Yeah, that's right. That's. That's right. In a bathroom. I remember, inside the courthouse. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Um, so, yeah, that's. The anger wasn't towards Kattie.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Okay. Yeah, well, that. That's common. The common thing is that the non believer wants this, expects the spouse to get on the Same page, quickly. And not only is this believing spouse often not willing or desires to get on the same page, they're going to go in the other direction as a way to counterbalance.

Allan Mount [00:11:59] Right.

John Dehlin [00:11:59] The trajectory of the relationship, and it causes a lot of tension and anger on both sides. Kattie, it sounds like you were able to be a little more compassionate or reasonable than maybe some feel like they're able to be at first.

Kattie Mount [00:12:14] Yeah. Which maybe.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] Maybe put back a little bit of the anger, resentment you might have had, Allan, because, I mean, within a short amount of time you're doing a podcast, which we'll get to, but sure, keep going on how you're experiencing his experience.

Kattie Mount [00:12:25] Well, I mean, I think I feel like I was just trying. Trying to understand for a long time, and I was trying to be as patient and as loving and as compassionate as I could be. Right. While dealing with these feelings. And meanwhile, he's got a brother to confide in. I have no one to confide in. And I'm, like, constantly on the verge of tears. So that summer was bad for a number of reasons. Um, you know, this is going on at the same time. Things in primary are not going well because I have. I have people who are having emotional affairs with each other and physical affairs, and I'm having to deal with it because I am the primary president and they're. They're working with me, and it's very difficult.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] That's a lot of drama.

Kattie Mount [00:13:21] So there's a lot of drama happening both in my personal life at. At Chur. And I always felt like I was just. If anyone had even looked wrong at me, I would spill my guts and cry. And I was just. It was a really vulnerable time. So I went to the first counselor in the Stake presidency because Allan had confided in him and asked him questions about some of the historicity of the church. And I went to him and I was feeling really, like, down, and I. And I said, I just don't own. I don't know how to navigate this. There is no framework or map that tells me how I need to respond, what I need to do, what I. You know, is there any advice you can give me? And his advice was, well, maybe you need to pray for something difficult to happen so that it changes his heart

John Dehlin [00:14:24] to, like, humble him. Pray for adversity.

Kattie Mount [00:14:27] Pray for adversity. And I was really upset with that advice because I thought, like, I'm already in the dumps and you're asking me to put something. Ask for something else to happen when I can't even emotionally handle what's happening now.

John Dehlin [00:14:47] What is he thinking? Pray for cancer. Pray for I don't know what, financial catastrophe.

Kattie Mount [00:14:53] I don't know what he.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] You've got like four young kids.

Kattie Mount [00:14:56] And he said, do you have enough faith to pray for something like that? And I was ticked. And then I said, is there anyone in the stake? Is there anyone that either went through this, is currently going through this, or. Or someone I can talk to? You don't have to give me a name right now, but can you think of someone you could reach out to that would be able to help me? And he sat there for a few. I mean, I would say 20, 30 seconds, we sat in silence. And then he said, there isn't anyone.

Kattie Mount [00:15:28] And that I think that I inside his first piece of advice made me mad. And then when he said there isn't anyone, I scoffed at it because I thought, okay, either people aren't coming to you, they're not being truthful because this is a really hard thing and they know what the reaction's gonna be, or people are lying about it. Like, there's. There's no way that this is not happening in the stake.

Kattie Mount [00:15:55] And really that gave me the push and momentum to start the podcast because I didn't feel like it was fair that there weren't. We have all these addiction programs. We have all sorts of help for everyone, but we don't have anyone that can talk about a mixed faith marriage and how one can stay in and one can stay out. And that really bothered me.

John Dehlin [00:16:24] And I. I just have to jump in and add a couple quick things, if it's okay. Thank you for sharing the story. So that's. That's how Mormon Stories was born. Was me going through a faith crisis and having no resources anywhere to support people through a faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:16:41] So I really relate to that. It's like this is just way too hard. And I didn't have a mixed faith marriage because Margi came along literally weeks later after I really told her the news. She was. We were on the same page, so. But I've always cared about mixed faith marriages and we did content on that very early on in Mormon Stories podcast.

John Dehlin [00:17:00] But I just have to tell a story about, you know, when my brother was chief information officer for church headquarters, working for the church intimately on the first name basis with the first presidency in the quorum of the 12. He gave me two lunches with Elder Holland.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] So I met twice with Elder Holland, you know, lunchtime, top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in the Restaurant part that's closed at lunchtime. So it's like this huge restaurant with just me and my brother Joel and Elder Holland.

John Dehlin [00:17:28] And in the second lunch that I had with Elder Holland, I basically said to Elder Holland, and this is right around the time he gave his Book of Mormon talk. I said, okay, you know, last time we talked about, do you want people who are. Who've had a faith crisis in the church? And Elder Holland was emphatically saying, yes, we want you in the church, we need you in the church, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then he gives the Book of Mormon talk. Well, after that, I meet with them and I say, my biggest concern on Elder Holland is that there are too many people in the church who are in this mixed faith marriage where marriages and families are literally being torn apart by one person losing their faith and the other believing.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] And it makes the believing spouse want to divorce the non believing spouse and take the kids and families are being ripped apart. Can we have a talk in General Conference addressing the issue of mixed faith marriages? And I'll never forget his response to me. He said, maybe when the church is a little bit more mature, we'll be able to give that sort of talk, but right now we're not in a place where we can address that issue directly.

John Dehlin [00:18:31] And I said, but Elder Holland marriages are being ripped apart. And he's just like. And the sense I got was he was basically saying, some of the older brother are gonna have to die before we're ever gonna be able to touch this topic.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] So, you know, I know for a fact that at least one senior member of the quorum of the 12 was put on notice years and years and years before, but there was just this perception that it's just too radioactive.

John Dehlin [00:18:56] And so they. It was a conscious decision on Elder Holland's part to say this is a place we can't go as late as, let's just say 2012, 2011, which is around the time I was meeting with Holland. So, yeah, so anyway, you know, it's. I guess the only reason I'm saying that is because the Brethren have known that this is a big problem.

John Dehlin [00:19:20] But. But part of the reason why you didn't have resources in 2017 is because they just felt like this was something they couldn't tackle probably without infecting bishops and stake presidents and. And ward members. So it was a conscious decision on the church's part to not address this issue. So that left you feeling. That left you having to do it.

Allan Mount [00:19:43] Right, Right. No, that this topic came up when we interviewed Natasha that there, there are. I mean, you look at the doubt, your doubts talk by President Uchtdorf and a lot of us in the post Mormon world scoff at some of the things that were said in that. But that, that talk also recognizes that someone losing their faith or having deep questions or doubts about the church isn't what you think it is. There's actually some really great things said in that talk. So there's. Over the course of these, since you met with Holland, Elder Holland, there are a few things to point out to say, like, hey, you know, maybe some of the ice is being cracked.

John Dehlin [00:20:18] Well, that was all the work with, with Hans Mattsson.

Allan Mount [00:20:21] Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:22] And Marlon Jensen and all the work we did with Travis Stratford and the, the, the. The faith crisis survey that we put out that ended up. Marlon Jensen ended up using to convince the brethren to put out the essays.

Allan Mount [00:20:35] Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] And then ultimately that was all packaged in a book that Travis Stratford delivered to Dieter Uchtdorf that, that summer before he gave that big talk in General Conference. Like that was all footwork.

Allan Mount [00:20:48] Right.

John Dehlin [00:20:48] Those of us in the podcasting world and the blogging world tried to lay out layout along with Sunstone and Dialogue and Mormon History Association. All our, all the, the shoulders of giants that we all stood on. That was just a lot of hard work that we did. You know, the church views me and others as enemies. From 2005 to now, we've been working to try and get the church to improve, just to make lives better. And that's what's weird about this position, is that we're viewed as evil, scary enemies. But we were all part of, including Jeremy Runels, laying that groundwork so that the church would feel motivated to make positive changes.

Allan Mount [00:21:26] Right.

John Dehlin [00:21:26] So again, Uchtdorf talks and all that.

Allan Mount [00:21:29] That's all part of it.

John Dehlin [00:21:30] It's all part of the hard work we've been doing for, for well over a decade. So not to take credit. It's not about credit. It's just about how does change happen in the church. It's. It's a slog and people making sacrifices and then we're demonized and told to the world we're evil, dark, bad, scary, satanic people when we're all working together to try and make the church better. Yeah. So it's just a weird irony to. But I'm also connecting with the fact that you would say, well, then we need to do something about this. And that's kind of what you're saying, right?

Kattie Mount [00:22:04] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:22:04] And was it. I don't feel like it. Was your reaction to what the first counselor in the stake presidency said? I don't feel like your reaction was, the church isn't doing this, so by gum, I'm going to. It was more a personally empathetic approach of, there's other people out there that feel this way. I want to make sure that they know they're not alone.

Kattie Mount [00:22:26] Yeah. And during this time, I was on Facebook, and they had a few groups, but I didn't know where to find them. And I ended up going to, like, a LDS wives anonymous group. And it's basically everyone airing their dirty laundry, but in an anonymous way. And then people would comment on it. And so I brought up the fact that my husband is no longer in the church, and I don't know how to deal with this. Give me some adv. And the only thing I heard from person after person was, I'm sorry, that must be so hard. I don't think I could do it if my husband left.

Kattie Mount [00:23:05] I mean, they were. They were just simple platitudes. And so then I mentioned to Allan, you know, I feel like there are more people out there who are in this position. What? Like, I really thought, like, what is it? What can I do in my sphere of influence?

Kattie Mount [00:23:25] And Allan had done a podcast before with his brother, and so I just mentioned to him, hey, what if we did a podcast about our experience as a mixed faith couple? And this was your idea? That was my idea the whole time. It was towards the end of 2017.

John Dehlin [00:23:42] And did you listen to podcasts at that point?

Kattie Mount [00:23:45] I had listened to some podcasts, but

Allan Mount [00:23:47] it's like npr, and they were all npr. Not Mormon themed, nothing Mormon themed.

John Dehlin [00:23:50] So why would you. How did you come up with that idea of doing a podcast?

Kattie Mount [00:23:55] I felt like I was inspired to do it. I really do, because I don't like to be in the limelight. I love connecting with people one on one, but to stand up in front of a crowd is not my favorite thing. So instead, we're behind closed doors in a room, podcasting. But I knew that he had the capabilities and know how to create a podcast. And so I just said, well, maybe that's something that we could look into.

How Their Marriage Survived the Faith Transition

John Dehlin [00:24:26] So I have to ask. So many believing spouses are not only as they're going through this trauma, they're not only not thinking about, how do we start a podcast today, they're at war with their believing spouse, thinking about leaving them, potentially filing divorce papers. But certainly it's like an emotional battleground. And to this day, I know many Mixed faith marriages where the non believing spouse is viewed as inferior, they're viewed as a disappointment. It strained the marriage beyond belief, if the marriage even survives, let alone all those that have ended in divorce. What was it that allowed you, if you had to put your finger on it, to not be in that space with Allan?

Kattie Mount [00:25:09] Yeah, I think early on in our marriage we've learned really, really good communication skills. And whenever we had to talk through something and it could, sometimes it took an hour or two, sometimes it took days, sometimes it took a week, we were always able to talk through our problem, and then it always brought us closer together. And in this instance too, where he's going through this faith crisis and I'm in the dark and then I find out and I have no one to talk to. I have. The only person I feel like I can confide in is him. We have to learn the tools and communication to get through all of that.

Kattie Mount [00:25:54] And always, without fail. We may not, like, agree at the end, but we always became stronger as we talk through these things. And so I knew that that was something that would be helpful for other people to hear because it's really difficult things to talk through. And if other people could have a modeled behavior that we showcase on the podcast where we talk through some difficult things and then they can go home and talk about it in the same way or in their own way. But just to have that map of how you can get through a hard discussion like that, I knew that that would be invaluable for listeners. And so that's what I would chalk it up to, is the way we were able to work through conflict with each other.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] But did you internalize it as he was a disappointment, he broke the contract.

Kattie Mount [00:26:51] I did at first.

John Dehlin [00:26:52] Your celestial marriage has been destroyed.

Kattie Mount [00:26:53] I totally did at first. At first I said, this is not what I signed up for. I had a roadmap because, remember, I'm a rule follower. I'm the planner. We had a roadmap.

John Dehlin [00:27:04] Disneyland, right?

Kattie Mount [00:27:05] Yeah, we had a roadmap every year.

John Dehlin [00:27:08] Go to Thunder Mountain.

Kattie Mount [00:27:09] Yeah, exactly. I mean, I. I had it. And so at first it was. But then after I accepted the fact that things were not going to change and that, well, maybe you can tell the story. You tell the story of the restaurant when we were.

Allan Mount [00:27:24] Oh, yeah, the restaurant. Yeah. So, yeah, to get to that, I think the podcast couldn't have started before some of the dust settled. So part of that was this conversation that we had at Jinya Great Ramen Place on State.

John Dehlin [00:27:40] I've been there oh, yeah, it's great.

Kattie Mount [00:27:41] Great.

John Dehlin [00:27:42] I've been there with Zolf on the shelf.

Kattie Mount [00:27:43] Oh.

Allan Mount [00:27:43] Oh, have you really? Do you know who that is?

Kattie Mount [00:27:46] Yes, I do. Bert. John Larsen.

Allan Mount [00:27:48] Oh, yeah, he did mention that. So we. We're at Jinya and we're talking about, again, these. It just takes over your life. So you're talking about our son is turning 12, and how are we gonna do that? And we're just talking about these things, and it's just exhausting. And Kattie very vulnerably shares, like, are we just fooling ourselves? Are we going to make it? Are we just putting up this fight and ultimately we're just. Just going to end up divorcing? And in that moment, I. I turned to her and I said, are you going to leave me? Are you going to leave me? And she said, no, I would. I'm not going to leave you. And I said, you will have to leave me if this ends in divorce. You're gonna have to leave me because I'm not going anywhere. And that was a big moment for me.

John Dehlin [00:28:39] Wait, she said that to you?

Allan Mount [00:28:40] I said that to her.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] Okay, okay. You said, I'm not going.

Allan Mount [00:28:42] I asked her, are you going to leave me? And she said, no. I said, then we're not going to end divorce because I'm not going anywhere. The only way that this ends in divorce is you leaving me because I'm not going anywhere. And I said it forcefully, I said it very directly. And we ate our noodles and felt a lot better.

John Dehlin [00:29:01] Slurped your noodles.

Allan Mount [00:29:02] Slurped our noodles, that's right.

Kattie Mount [00:29:04] But I think that that was like the. The catapults that catapult us into a different frame of mind.

John Dehlin [00:29:11] How did you escape? Again, I'm repeating myself, but he's a disappointment. He's wrecked your eternal family. How did you avoid.

Allan Mount [00:29:20] You know what?

John Dehlin [00:29:21] Like, how did you get out of

Allan Mount [00:29:22] that with the stake president conversation? I think that was a huge moment.

Kattie Mount [00:29:26] Yeah, that was a huge moment. Well, I'll say. First of all, I think that anyone who's not living with a person that's having a faith crisis, you would just. On the outside, you would never know, because I see, like, his dad dying. I see all of this mental and physical anguish he's going through. I see the battle he is fighting within himself when he's finding out information, and he's talking to the stake president, he's talking to the bishop, he's talking to me about it. So this is just like months and months and months of me seeing his inner heart and where he's at and how tough and how much he's struggling.

Kattie Mount [00:30:04] And I just, I can't deny that his struggle isn't real. And I can't deny that he wasn't doing this to hurt me because I could see that as time went on, he's trying everything he can to stay in even though he himself is hurting. And I think that's how I can get past it mentally. And you know, I we you felt

John Dehlin [00:30:28] for him, you cared about him and you saw that it was sincere. It wasn't a choice, it wasn't. He didn't want it, he didn't want to sin. You loved him. Basically.

Kattie Mount [00:30:38] He's not the type of person that would hurt me intentionally. So everything that he's going through and things that are happening, he's not doing it because he wants to hurt me or he wants out of the marriage or he wants to live a different lifestyle. I see that, I see it day after day after day after day. And you have to give them credit. And I gave him a lot of credit and that's how I could move forward. And I received an email from after. Well, we came out and we told our families at the end of 2017 and 21st of 2018, we told our families and I got an email from a really well meaning family member who said to me, you know, maybe this like is your way. Maybe you need to make the hard choices like the pioneers did. Cut and run and cut ties and leave your spouse.

John Dehlin [00:31:32] That's one way to interpret the pioneering spirit. Right?

Kattie Mount [00:31:36] I was really upset with this and I went to our stake president at the time and I let him read the email and I said, like what, like what do you say to that? And he said, you know what, Kattie? Is Allen a good husband? I said, yes. He said, is he abusive to you or the kids? No. Is he a good father? Yes. Does he support you? Yes. Kattie, we know about a pinky full worth of doctrine as to what really is going to happen on the next life when it comes to marriage. So I can tell you that I would never counsel anyone to get divorced over something like this and that you'll live with your, you'll live with him again, you'll be with your family again.

Kattie Mount [00:32:28] And when he said that, it just made so much sense to me. And I thought, yeah, I'm not willing to put our marriage at risk for this because he is in every other way besides this one way where I'm having a hard time is a great man. And so again Help me just move forward.

John Dehlin [00:32:48] So there's a theological shift that your stake. Was it stake president. Do you see? Which is the classic. And I would say awesome Mormon, catch all, which is our loving Heavenly Father will make it all right in the end.

Kattie Mount [00:33:00] Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:00] And if a believing. That's like, we'll get to this. But like, if. If I could give one gift to every believing spouse, it's to just tweak your theology, your view of the afterlife, that a loving heavenly Father is not going to keep good people from each other. A loving heavenly Father is not going to tear families apart and that eternity is long and that somehow everything's going to be okay. You don't need to worry about the afterlife. Just have a great life now. Yeah, right.

Kattie Mount [00:33:30] Yeah, that's exactly.

John Dehlin [00:33:31] Heavenly Father will make it all okay.

Kattie Mount [00:33:33] It'll all work out.

Allan Mount [00:33:34] And there's conflicting messages because you hear. You hear talks that.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that, Nelson.

Allan Mount [00:33:40] We'll get that. But we. As far you talk about leadership roulette, we nailed it. Our bishop and our stake presidents have been fantastic.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] Well, you guys had marriage roulette, too, because I think, Allan, you handled it pretty gracefully.

Kattie Mount [00:33:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:55] Given other. And people who don't handle it gracefully. I get it.

Allan Mount [00:34:00] Right.

John Dehlin [00:34:00] I don't expect you to. And it's normal. And, you know, you have all the compassion in the world. But it sounds like Allan, you handle it really gracefully. And Kattie, it sounds like you loved Allan, not the gospel. You love Allan first.

Kattie Mount [00:34:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] And you also love the gospel. But he wasn't like second. You know, he was right there with it. So you guys are kind of lucky to have had each other. And then it sounds like you had a great stake president and that's a perfect storm of goodness.

Kattie Mount [00:34:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:28] Which everyone doesn't always have.

Kattie Mount [00:34:29] No. And Allan, at the time, I mean, I'm in ward council. Right. So the bishop knows what's happening, and the stake president know what's happening. I know what's happening, but nobody else knows. And I hadn't really confided in anyone. But then in early in 2018, we record our first podcast, and then Allan kind of. I don't know what the word is. Pimps it out, like, sends it to people to like, hey, are you interested in this?

John Dehlin [00:34:57] Was it with Bill Real to begin or.

Allan Mount [00:34:59] Yeah, it was right from the beginning.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] So were you a big listener of Bill Real?

Allan Mount [00:35:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:03] It was your podcast of choice, Kind of. Oh, gosh.

Allan Mount [00:35:05] Johnny, Johnny. Johnny Mormon Stories was big. And I don't want to fawn I do want to fawn over you, but I won't hear live. I have in the past and I'll do it again. But Mormon Stories was huge for me. You actually introduced me to Mormon expression when you had lunch with us last year. I had never heard of John Larsen because it's been off the air for a few years. So that was big. Last year when you introduced me, that year of polygamy with Lindsay Hansen park was a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge one for me. So that was big. But Bill Real played a very key role. Especially the type of episodes he was releasing when I was going through my crisis was very much. There was a number of episodes that were made for family members of those of people that were struggling.

Family and Community Reactions

John Dehlin [00:35:53] Right.

Allan Mount [00:35:54] So I mean, he literally starts the episode with, if you're listening to this, there's someone that you love or care about that is really struggling with your faith and we just want to help you understand what they're going through. Like it's. It's very tailor made for them. I shared some of that with Kattie, with my mom.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] And he was still in the church.

Allan Mount [00:36:10] Right. He was still in.

John Dehlin [00:36:11] Trying to be faithful.

Allan Mount [00:36:12] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:36:13] So Kattie, for you, Bill, real stuff at the time would have felt safe. And maybe.

Kattie Mount [00:36:18] Or not or I did not listen. That was the only episode I listened to of Bill's was the. To your family and friends. And so when we started recording, I did not know anything about you. I did not know anything about the Mormon podcast world. Didn't know anyone's names.

Kattie Mount [00:36:37] I had heard your name at. It was like a church thing. But they were using you as the, the bad example, right? Like the excommunicated example at church. At church. Yeah, I know that's weird, those guys. But that, But I don't. I didn't dwell on it. I just remember hearing it and that was it. And so when we started the podcast, I had zero knowledge of any. Anybody didn't know anybody had never listened to a podcast by Mormon Stories by. Where I'm just nothing. No one.

Kattie Mount [00:37:07] It was. I was too green. Like, I didn't trust myself because I was still having all these feelings of how am I working this out. I felt like bringing more information and more people into this. It just was overwhelming. It was too much.

Kattie Mount [00:37:26] So we recorded our first episode and he sent it to Bill and we didn't hear back. We didn't hear back. And I thought, well, that's that they didn't like it. And after we were done recording our first episode, I thought I said to Allan, we're never doing that again.

Kattie Mount [00:37:42] And he sent it. And then it was a Saturday night, and Allan got a text late, and Bill said, oh, I'm releasing your podcast tomorrow morning. And I panicked because I said, like, oh, my gosh.

Allan Mount [00:37:57] We had just told her family. We just told my family earlier that I was no longer believed.

Kattie Mount [00:38:03] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:38:03] So it was very fresh for them.

John Dehlin [00:38:05] And what do you want to say about how your family reacted?

Kattie Mount [00:38:09] I will say that all of them were very loving and concerned. And I think we told my siblings first, and I think because they are our peers and they really showed a lot of love towards Allan, they were great. And if some of the reactions weren't loving at first, those family members have come around and they have, like, doubled. They have tried to be overly loving, overly respectful, overly conscious. So that's what I'll say about that.

Allan Mount [00:38:49] Yeah. The email that we got from a family member saying, maybe you should cut and run. Kattie had me read it too. It wasn't addressed to me, of course it was. Was just to her. She had me read it. And the conversation we had in my office at home, which is where we record the podcast, but this is before the podcast.

Allan Mount [00:39:07] I ask her, do you still want to have a relationship with this person? Yeah, of course I do. Okay. So they're going through this for the first time. They don't know what to do. They think they're losing their family members forever.

Allan Mount [00:39:24] Let's just give them time. It could have been very easy for me to say, that's it. We're cutting in the relationship. They're a threat. They're going to ruin our family. We're not going to allow that to happen. I'm really glad that we just said, and this is man, as far as a mixed faith marriage, give yourself time, Give your family members time, Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Because that first little bit, while most people were absolutely supportive, even crying, like, I'm so sorry, I had no idea you're going through this. We love you. Some of the reactions weren't like that, but it was understandable, even though it hurt at the same time, if that makes sense.

Kattie Mount [00:40:02] And we gave everyone the benefit of the doubt because my initial reaction to Allan was very harsh and angry and. And. And I was upset until I could understand and come around to it. So if we had reaction from friends or family or ward members that were like that, we gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, and two years later, they've come around.

John Dehlin [00:40:24] So if they react negatively, just give them space.

Kattie Mount [00:40:27] Give them time.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] Don't. Don't personalize it. Don't react right. Let them grieve and mourn just like you had to. That's.

Allan Mount [00:40:33] That's so hard to say because you don't want to set yourself up to be a punching bag or.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] We worried abuse.

Allan Mount [00:40:40] Exactly.

Kattie Mount [00:40:41] Exactly.

Allan Mount [00:40:41] With this specific situation, with this email, we said we don't. We agreed we don't want to ruin this relationship. So we're not going to overreact. Even though a reaction may not be overreacting, we're just going to ignore it and see what happens. If they cross a boundary, we're going to have to address this head on. They never did again. It never happened again. And quite the contrary, everyone in her family has, I feel, gone out of their way to treat me the same, if not better than they always have. So I, again, feel like that's another thing that we're very lucky and very grateful for.

Kattie Mount [00:41:19] Yeah.

Launching the Marriage on a Tightrope Podcast

John Dehlin [00:41:20] So before we move to the presentation, let's just talk a little bit about what it's been like to do the podcast. So you share that first episode with Bill Real. He shares it on Mormon discussions. Did you come up with the Marriage on a Tightrope name or did you? I did.

Allan Mount [00:41:36] That's Kattie.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] That's Kattie.

Kattie Mount [00:41:37] Yeah. I listened. We went. Went and saw that December the Greatest Showman. And I was listening to the soundtrack one day. Which song to Tightrope like some people. Yeah. That's the intro and outro of our.

Allan Mount [00:41:58] This song is all about how, oh, my gosh, you make life so hard, but I'm going to go through it with you because I wouldn't have it any other way.

Kattie Mount [00:42:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:06] Follow you to the great unknown. Right.

Allan Mount [00:42:07] Yeah. Yeah. The.

John Dehlin [00:42:08] The key line in mind, that promise to never. Let's go.

Allan Mount [00:42:13] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:42:14] We're walking a tightrope. I love it. That's it. Margi and I have a thing about that song, too. Love it.

Allan Mount [00:42:19] Yeah, we love it.

John Dehlin [00:42:20] So I connect to that.

Kattie Mount [00:42:21] Yeah.

Allan Mount [00:42:21] We call our listeners tightropers. We're all on the tightrope together.

Kattie Mount [00:42:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:25] It was inspired by Greatest Showman.

Kattie Mount [00:42:27] It was. I love that. I listened to it and I had

John Dehlin [00:42:30] forgotten that or didn't know it.

Kattie Mount [00:42:31] Yeah. I listened to it and sent it to Allan on like. Yeah. So this is exactly what we're going through. He listened to it and we decided Marriage on a Tightrope.

John Dehlin [00:42:39] It's a theme for faith crisis Couples, too, for sure.

Kattie Mount [00:42:42] It totally is.

John Dehlin [00:42:42] Oh, I'm getting a little choked up.

Kattie Mount [00:42:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:45] Yeah, I thought of it that way.

Kattie Mount [00:42:47] Yeah. It just meant a lot. And so we started the podcast and

John Dehlin [00:42:52] says, will you catch me if I should fall?

Kattie Mount [00:42:54] Yeah, yeah.

Allan Mount [00:42:54] Every single episode. If you listen at the very end, after we give our outro, the first. First lyric that hits is, and I'll risk it all just to be with you or for the life we choose. Excuse me.

Kattie Mount [00:43:05] For the life we choose.

Allan Mount [00:43:05] And I'll risk it all for the life we choose. That's on purpose. That. That is the first line people hear, because that's what we're doing. We're risking it, everything, because we've chosen this. So she's the marketing brilliance behind that

Kattie Mount [00:43:18] idea, and he's the technical brilliance because I don't know anything about podcasting. So he got us all set up, and we.

Allan Mount [00:43:25] It's real hard to hit record.

Kattie Mount [00:43:26] And, well, he also does the editing. So we did our first podcast, and I said to Allan, is anyone even gonna respond to us? And see, I really didn't think much of it. And then.

John Dehlin [00:43:42] Cool of Bill to give you a platform, right? Because it's one thing if you had just tried to start this on your own. It's a long haul to build an audience, especially in 2000 and whatever. 18.

Kattie Mount [00:43:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:55] So to have Bill just give you his platform, I mean, it benefits him, sure, because it's great content, but it skyrockets your visibility immediately. So that's a cool thing Bill did, right?

Allan Mount [00:44:09] Yeah, Very, very cool of him to do it. And, you know, we. When that first. When he sent us the email saying it's going to release overnight tonight, I mean, I was still going to church, but, John, I was still going to church every. I didn't stop until December of 2018 is when I stopped going.

Allan Mount [00:44:25] So I immediately went and got ahold of my bishop and said, hey, just so you know, this podcast is about to release, or it just released last night, and this is why we're doing it. This is what it's about. This is things we're never going to talk about. This episode right now that we're sitting and doing, we never, ever, ever discuss truth claims on our podcast.

Allan Mount [00:44:47] The goal for our podcast, and this is a good way to segue into the second, third part, rather of going into our presentation from the Thrive Conference. But we want the Most t of TBMs, the most believing of spouses to feel safe.

John Dehlin [00:45:02] Okay. Yeah. So talk about the podcast, how you set it up, how you strategized it, what it is. Sure.

Kattie Mount [00:45:06] So we laid some ground rules ahead of time. We decided that we would never call out anyone in particular, so. So family member. If there was, like, a terrible comment made or a certain leader would never call them out.

John Dehlin [00:45:22] No names, right?

Kattie Mount [00:45:23] Yes, no names. We could talk about it in generalities, things that happened, but we were never gonna call somebody out. So that was rule number one. The second rule was we were never gonna bring up specific topics because.

Allan Mount [00:45:35] Specific truth claims.

Kattie Mount [00:45:36] Truth claims. Right. Topics.

John Dehlin [00:45:38] Talk about polyandry. You wouldn't even use that word.

Allan Mount [00:45:41] In the first episode, I gave a very abbreviated version of my faith crisis. So picture what we did in about 40 minutes, condensed to about two minutes.

John Dehlin [00:45:51] Okay.

Allan Mount [00:45:51] I learned a few things about Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] Very brief.

Allan Mount [00:45:54] Very, very brief.

Kattie Mount [00:45:55] Very brief.

Allan Mount [00:45:56] But outside of that, we don't really. Some of the couples that we interview, they do the same thing. They'll say, this was really important to me. That was really important to me. But other than that, we don't dig into the.

John Dehlin [00:46:04] And the reason is.

Kattie Mount [00:46:05] The reason is because we wanted to focus on the relationship and not the mechanism for someone staying in or someone leaving. We just didn't feel like it was important. We could talk through the hard things that we were going through and we were feeling, but we didn't have to get into deep specifics because there are other podcasts for that. There are other podcasts that get into very detailed explanations about history, about all sorts of things. That's not us. Us. We want to just focus on the marriage and how we talk through some of those really difficult discussions, like word of wisdom and all of that.

Allan Mount [00:46:45] Yeah. I'm glad that we were able to start when we did, because we were still going through things for the very first time.

John Dehlin [00:46:53] So it was kind of like it was therapy. It was therapy, but it's also kind of reality TV and then. Yeah, but it's also sharing something with the world for the benefit of them to learn from you.

Allan Mount [00:47:05] Right? Yeah. The reciprocal.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] It's bidirectional.

Allan Mount [00:47:08] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:47:08] You're benefiting, they're benefiting.

Allan Mount [00:47:10] We said this. Part of the conference, part of our message is, the dirty little secret of our podcast is that we have gotten so much out of the people that we've now been able to meet and interact with like people. Tell us.

Allan Mount [00:47:27] Your podcast helped me not feel alone. Just hearing someone talk about these things that I've had to talk about with my spouse. You've saved our marriage. Now imagine being on our side hearing the stories of hundreds of other couples. Like, that's just benefiting us. Like, we're literally. It's exhibitionism is what it's called, is what John Larsen labeled us. We're a little bit of an exhibitionism. We, we are putting our real life journey on display without any pretensions of, of being the experts. We're just, we're going through it and we're going to tell you how we're going through it. We're going to tell you the mistakes we're making.

Allan Mount [00:48:03] We're going to try to give you tips if we've found things to be helpful. And if we, if we give advice, we always try to say, this is just what we experienced and what, what's been helpful for us.

Kattie Mount [00:48:15] Yeah,

Allan Mount [00:48:17] those first early episodes and the reaction to them were game changing.

John Dehlin [00:48:23] So the first several episodes is just you two talking to each other.

Allan Mount [00:48:26] Yeah, we didn't interview anybody till like episode 20 something, 25, 20 something.

John Dehlin [00:48:30] And so would each episode have a theme or.

Allan Mount [00:48:32] Yeah, so first episode was just a,

John Dehlin [00:48:34] like, here's what's happened this week.

Allan Mount [00:48:35] It's basically. It wasn't quite a serial podcast like that, but it would basically be like, here's what we're dealing with now. So the second one was church attendance. The second episode was about how am I able to still attend? Because at the time I was. And then when I stopped attending, we had an episode on. This is why I don't feel I can attend anymore. So it has a little bit of a timeline, a timeline effect to it. But, you know, at the time we kind of skipped over a little bit of the conversation I had with my brother when he visited with us. But he helped me take my time.

Allan Mount [00:49:09] I think part of the believer in him was hoping that, that by taking my time I would end up purging some of the wrong quote unquote conclusions. But what that did was it kept me attending. It kept me being okay with a slow timeline and just doing things as I felt comfortable. And so the first, I mean, for the majority of the first year of 2018, all of those podcasts were being released as I'm still active in the church.

John Dehlin [00:49:41] So are there like, of the first 20, 25, are there classics that really reached people that are. I mean, I'm sure they were all great, but can you remember, like certain really big ones or really ones that connected?

Allan Mount [00:49:55] I think the biggest, the one that people have pointed us to is episode four, which was done on Valentine's Day. It's titled Love. And there was a moment in the podcast where I asked Kattie and she didn't know. I think the greatest moments in the podcast are when it's spontaneous and unplanned

Kattie Mount [00:50:15] usually ends with me crying or something.

Allan Mount [00:50:17] Sometimes that backfires and we talk about things that end up getting edited out. But in this episode, I asked her the question, how do you know that I love you? And what was your response to that? Do you remember?

Kattie Mount [00:50:28] Yeah, I listed a number of things that he does that lets me know that he loves me, serves me, loves the kids, etc. Etc.

Allan Mount [00:50:37] I go to work every day without complaint. Well, not without complaining, but relatively small complaints. He kisses me. You tell the kids you love them, you play with them, you're a great dad. And at the end of it, it didn't backfire, thankfully, because at the end of it, I said, you didn't say a single thing about my belief in the church, my belief in God. You didn't say anything. So that episode was. We had a number of listeners tell us that that moment was, was a big moment. We've had some, some episodes that have been very, very real. The reaction to the last general conference, we had a lot of. Of listeners heartbroken over President Nelson's talk

John Dehlin [00:51:18] where he said, what, for those who

Allan Mount [00:51:20] don't know, you're going to go to heaven and where's your family? They're. They're not here because of what you did on earth. In short, that's. That's the message. So talk.

John Dehlin [00:51:30] Basically making Mormons, guilting Mormons into staying in the church because. Wreck your eternal family. Is that right? Right.

Allan Mount [00:51:36] And, and being in a mixed faith marriage, hearing that, especially for the believer,

John Dehlin [00:51:40] was that hard for you, Kattie?

Kattie Mount [00:51:43] Yeah, it's tough. I don't know. We were actually on. We were in Arizona. He had a business trip, and I just tagged along and left the kids, and I was sitting in bed. And one of the cool things about our podcast is we've been able to bring a lot of people together, like meet and interact with a lot of people on our side. But, you know, our goal is to get support groups started everywhere. So I was meeting with this group of ladies the next day, and one of the women that we had interviewed on our own podcast text me that night and said, did you listen to President Nelson's talk? And I said, no. And she said, don't, which means do, basically.

John Dehlin [00:52:30] Right.

Allan Mount [00:52:31] How can you not do it at that point?

Kattie Mount [00:52:33] So I listened to it and I.

Allan Mount [00:52:35] We listened to it together.

Kattie Mount [00:52:36] We listened to it together. And Allan didn't say a word. And I just, like, silently cried the whole time. And it was hard. It was really hard to listen to

John Dehlin [00:52:48] what was hard about it. What were the hard parts?

Kattie Mount [00:52:50] I felt like it was a little bit manipulative. I felt like it was. Gosh. I felt like, how can someone tell me that I'm not going to be with my family? It was just upsetting. It was just very upsetting. And especially for someone like me who's trying so hard to be. To stay in. Because I love the church and there's so much good and the community, and I just love it so much. And you hear something like that, and it pushes me in the other direction. Right. Because I love my husband. So that was really hard.

John Dehlin [00:53:27] And it's like, stop making this harder. This is hard enough.

Kattie Mount [00:53:29] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So for those of us in this situation, it just. It was painful. It was a really painful.

John Dehlin [00:53:35] Plus, he's prophet.

Kattie Mount [00:53:37] Yeah. And it just. It was like I expected more compassion, and I didn't feel like it was there. And so the next day, I went to lunch with women I had never met before, and, like, six of them showed up, and we. And all of them were reeling from this one talk. And that was. That was hard. It was hard for me to. You know, I don't know what to say other than you're supposed to represent

John Dehlin [00:54:06] the believers, so they're probably looking to you to, like, make them feel better about the prophet's talk.

Kattie Mount [00:54:11] Right, right. And, you know, I can take a step back and look at the whole talk and say, okay, well, he. I, I understand the body of the text, like, what he was getting at. I get it. I don't. I didn't agree with the delivery. I thought the delivery was bad.

Kattie Mount [00:54:29] So, you know, I. It's. It's hard for me because I feel like being believing doesn't mean that I agree with everything. And that's where the nuances come in. Right. Where I'm at now. But it does mean that I still get something out of it, and it works for me and it doesn't work for Allan. And we've talked about this before, but when you take right and wrong, you're right, they're wrong. When you take that language out of it and you talk about works versus doesn't work, then I think that you can separate some of those feelings for me right now. The church works for Allan.

Kattie Mount [00:55:18] It doesn't. So I think it's a continual battle for those who are believing because you feel so much for your spouse and you also feel for your church, and so the balance is difficult to have.

Allan Mount [00:55:39] Yeah, we talked about that again, because we don't name people Even the Prophet. We did have an episode about Kattie's reaction right after it happened. And that one, I'm just looking right now, is episode 28. It's called Fear versus Love because we felt it was a very fear based message where you can basically say the same thing with just a lot more love.

John Dehlin [00:56:06] Talk about. You've already talked about this a bit, but I want to go into it a bit. Talk about the unexpected positive and negative and overwhelming reactions of your listeners.

Kattie Mount [00:56:16] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [00:56:17] Because when you do that first episode, you have no idea what to expect. And for me, it was like I had poked a huge, I call it a big water balloon of pain in the sky. And the outpouring was, was just like a miraculously tragic and uplifting and rewarding. What have you experienced since you released that first episode in terms of outreach from your listeners?

Kattie Mount [00:56:43] What, you're going to cry now?

Allan Mount [00:56:44] I'm trying to.

Kattie Mount [00:56:45] Jeez. I'm the only one that's been crying this episode.

Allan Mount [00:56:47] No. And the reason why I'm tearing up is because, again, I've already said it once without tears for some reason. I'm tearing up now. But the stories that we've heard and the strength that we felt from people that have shared those stories has been just absolutely life changing for us.

John Dehlin [00:57:06] What types of stories?

Allan Mount [00:57:08] Everything from the most common, which is still great to hear every single time, is, I thought I was the only one. I had no idea that there was anyone else out here like this. And can I please talk to Kattie? Can I?

Allan Mount [00:57:23] My husband needs someone to talk to. You, Allan. Can you talk to him? People, we've seen every single outcome that you can. We've seen spouses that are both still attending. We've seen couples divorce. We've seen both couples leave. I had a listener and I had a podcast. It was a very short podcast about it, but I had a listener text me saying, I'm going to drive onto oncoming traffic.

Allan Mount [00:57:45] Goodbye. And I had been chatting with him for six months or so and he texts me that. And I'm like, what is happening? And I call him and we meet up for lunch and he just tells me everything he's going through. And you just, you, you go through this. And if we were hesitant to be personal and vulnerable at the beginning, as soon as these stories of all of this, like you said, the pain coming, coming from the sky, all these different stories, it's like, we can't, we can't stop now. There's just too much. There's too much pain that needs to be healed. And we're not the ones healing it.

Allan Mount [00:58:20] We're just showing other people like, you're not alone and there's someone else you can talk to. That's the healing. And so those stories, I mean, our latest episode we released with Justin and Pauli Brown. They were.

John Dehlin [00:58:34] Yay, Justin and Paulie.

Allan Mount [00:58:35] Yay, Justin and Paulie.

John Dehlin [00:58:36] They came to the Mormon Stories retreats with me and Natasha during a really critical time.

Allan Mount [00:58:40] They talk about that. And they absolutely loved it. Both of them absolutely loved it. And they were the very first. We went with three couples, us plus two more. We. There was our first dinner in the first episode. We said, hey, if you're in the Salt Lake area, let's go to dinner and open that flag. It hadn't been overwhelmed. It wasn't overwhelming yet. And so we don't offer that all the time anymore. But if someone comes to us and says, you want to go to dinner, we still love to do it. But we met them the very first dinner, and we are, all three of us couples are just best of friends.

John Dehlin [00:59:13] Oh, nice.

Allan Mount [00:59:14] Best of friends.

John Dehlin [00:59:15] Nice.

Allan Mount [00:59:15] It's. They brought us. We moved yesterday. Right. They brought us dinner yesterday to our house, Justin and Polly. So just these friendships that we make is just incredible.

Kattie Mount [00:59:26] Yeah. And we offered to do these dinners with people. And for the most part, I feel like it's just a listening ear because no one, A lot of these couples have not told a single soul until they get to us. So it's like a volcano of emotions and thoughts and feelings and everything that they've experienced. And so we're there to just absorb and help and be empathetic. But there have been some more difficult dinners where the wife was coerced into coming to the dinner or didn't know

John Dehlin [01:00:00] what they were getting into.

Kattie Mount [01:00:01] Yeah. And, you know, I just. We learned early, like, we had to make sure that both spouses were on the same page. And because we just didn't want. It was a bad experience and we didn't want that to happen again. But I think more than anything, we do a lot of just chatting on Allan does Facebook. I'm not on Facebook at all.

John Dehlin [01:00:21] So you have a Facebook group, right?

Kattie Mount [01:00:22] We have a Facebook group called Marriage on a Tightrope. And then we have an Instagram, which is Marriage on a Tightrope. And I manage our Instagram account. And then we also have a email address, marijana tightrope gmail.com. so through those avenues, we talked to quite a number of people, and it's been it's been really good. I love hearing other people's stories. I love connecting with them. I love offering them hope. I think at the beginning, I know at the beginning, Allan and I were in it to save marriages. We wanted people to stay together no matter what what happened. And then I learned that, you know, some of the marriages were probably not well matched in the beginning.

Kattie Mount [01:01:13] And so adding something like a faith crisis onto it is too much for the marriage to handle. And I understand that. And it doesn't. You know, we're. We're not here to model like, oh, this is the best way to do things. And look at us. We're so happy. And things are great because every dynamic is different and every marriage is different, and not all of them stay together. And that's okay. That's. That if that's the experience that they have, that's just even more. That's even. I mean, it's just as good as what we are doing now. But.

Advice for Mixed-Faith Couples and Closing Reflections

Allan Mount [01:01:49] But that is to say. That is not to say, not to say divorce. I mean that really the marriage ending should be the last resort. A mixed faith marriage shouldn't be the reason for the marriage ending. This is something Natasha has taught us as well, that it can shine a light on an already unhealthy marriage.

John Dehlin [01:02:09] In some ways, I always say a mixed faith marriage often reveals. It doesn't ruin a marriage, it reveals the marriage.

Allan Mount [01:02:16] Gotcha. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:17] And, you know, it lets you see where you really are, and then it lets you figure out where you want to go or not.

Allan Mount [01:02:23] Yeah. And thankfully, the light got shined on us and we saw that. All right, we can do this.

John Dehlin [01:02:31] Yeah. Not everyone can or should.

Allan Mount [01:02:33] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] But you want to save. I. I want to save every marriage I can.

Kattie Mount [01:02:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:37] I want to save every family I can.

Kattie Mount [01:02:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:40] If the marriage and family should be saved, that's it.

Kattie Mount [01:02:42] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:02:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:44] So you say there's support groups. Is there like a website with link to like.

Allan Mount [01:02:49] So, John, here's the deal. We are taking a break in July, but our number one goal when we get back is to a break, meaning

John Dehlin [01:02:57] a month, a week.

Kattie Mount [01:02:59] We're gone for July. We're all of July. We're gone to Georgia, and then Allan's got double knee surgery when we get back.

John Dehlin [01:03:04] Oh, no.

Kattie Mount [01:03:06] Old man.

Allan Mount [01:03:07] Old man. Tall knees.

John Dehlin [01:03:08] Goodness.

Kattie Mount [01:03:08] So those sports.

John Dehlin [01:03:10] I'm glad I didn't play college.

Allan Mount [01:03:13] I didn't play that much, though. I wasn't good enough to actually play. But I think what our biggest goal, once we're able to get back into it after our vacation is to set up more experiences for people like Kattie had in Phoenix with the ladies in Phoenix. Because especially for the believing spouses that don't really know who they can talk to, we want to connect people and we've done that kind of one off. Hey, you should talk to this person, you should talk to that person.

Allan Mount [01:03:41] Some of our newlywed couples that, I mean, they can't. We don't relate with them very well and so. But, oh, you live in Georgia. We have people there that you can talk to and oh, you're in Texas. We have people there you can talk to. We want to formalize that and really help people in a mixed faith marriage connect with others that are. That are similar. We'd love to be involved however we can be. As far as.

John Dehlin [01:04:02] So are you thinking like mixed faith marriage, Houston, Mixed faith, you know, like a Facebook group, mixed faith marriage Chicago?

Allan Mount [01:04:07] Yeah, we want to.

Kattie Mount [01:04:08] We thought about doing it digitally, like setting some of these people up digitally, but I think it's better in person. And it's especially the one that we had in Arizona where I met with ladies who were the believing spouses. I mean, this was last, let's see, March, April, and they continue to meet together every month, which is amazing.

John Dehlin [01:04:33] So you're talking about faced in person.

Kattie Mount [01:04:37] Support group.

John Dehlin [01:04:37] Support groups for mixed faith.

Allan Mount [01:04:39] We need to flesh the idea geographically, though.

Kattie Mount [01:04:41] Yes, geographically.

John Dehlin [01:04:42] And there's going to have to be either a meetup group or Facebook group where they tell each other about events and coordinates.

Allan Mount [01:04:48] Exactly. But we want to look for people like Waka.

John Dehlin [01:04:50] This is like wca, but for mixed faith marriages, basically.

Allan Mount [01:04:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:52] Mormon spectrum. But for mixed faith marriages, I think

Kattie Mount [01:04:55] though, we just like, we're the common denominator for most people who are listening. Right. So I think that there's something to be said about us like being able to go down to Provo and saying, hey, we're going to be there. Whoever wants to show up, show up so that we can get some of those people together. So I think that that is probably what we're going to try and do is.

John Dehlin [01:05:17] So you're going to do more events.

Kattie Mount [01:05:18] Do more events, like podcasters events and

Allan Mount [01:05:22] really like a kickoff of like these Phoenix. We're not involved with this Phoenix group anymore, but it's to launch a community.

Kattie Mount [01:05:28] Launch community.

John Dehlin [01:05:29] It's a jump start to seed a

Allan Mount [01:05:31] support community that's face to face, particularly for the ones that are still in. Because post Mormon stuff, there's a lot of resources now for post Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:05:41] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:05:41] To be able to meet up. I mean, you go onto the ex Mormon subreddit and there's a link at the top for meetups. And in Utah, there's just. There's tons of them every single Sunday. There's a lot of different resources, but for that believing spouse, there really isn't.

John Dehlin [01:05:54] Right. This is great. And obviously the church ideally would be creating these resources, but they're not, so.

Kattie Mount [01:05:59] Well.

John Dehlin [01:06:00] Oh.

Allan Mount [01:06:00] So here's a novel idea that I had that Kattie thinks is crazy, and I really admit that it's pretty crazy. I want to go to our stake president and bishop and say, let us teach a mixed faith marriage Sunday, second hour class twice a month.

John Dehlin [01:06:17] I remember having that sort of, you

Allan Mount [01:06:20] know, But I don't care. Like, for me, I'm saying, Kattie's reaction is, they'll never do it. I'm like, I don't. Okay, but I'm still gonna ask.

John Dehlin [01:06:28] Sure.

Allan Mount [01:06:28] I'm still gonna ask. Yeah, Yeah, I need to ask. I worked with the stake president before I stopped attending. I worked with the stake president to do a, like a fifth Sunday, third hour. This is before the change class about agreeing, disagreeing more tactfully and being okay with different opinions because I was trying to attend and I was raising my hand and saying, good, that's not quite how it happened, or, oh, can I offer a different perspective? And, man, I got blasted. And so I've. He. He and I were working together to. To set up that. That type of.

Allan Mount [01:07:05] That type of safe place for just one hour with all the adults to say, like, hey, what do you think? And then he got released and the new stick present came in. But that's the kind of thing. It's just whether you have to be vulnerable, personable, or be told you shouldn't be doing that, all we can do is say, I think it's right. And so I'm going to offer.

John Dehlin [01:07:26] Yeah, the option of not supporting these people is just impossible.

Allan Mount [01:07:29] Right.

Kattie Mount [01:07:30] Yeah.

Allan Mount [01:07:30] Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] I have to just say quickly that certainly some of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in the past 15 years have been either with Natasha or Julie Diaze Hanks. We've done some mixed faith marriage retreats where for two and a half days, it's 20 mixed faith couples at a hotel, just bringing in therapists and counselors and coaches to just tackle all the different issues. Child rearing, spirituality, church attendance, you know, communicating with church leaders, spirituality, values, healthy communication, healthy sexuality. The ones that we've done have been phenomenal. So whether you guys do that without me or Whether we collaborate or whatever, I just want to like, say to the audience and say to you there's something really. And that's how I met, you know,

Allan Mount [01:08:20] Paulie and, and Justin.

John Dehlin [01:08:22] And Justin, like giving, Giving these couples a way to meet a three day immersive experience with, with marriage and family therapists and sex therapists and people who know. Psychologists, people who know what they're doing and they're experts and they're talking about it. It saves so many marriages and it's. It's forged relationships that are. So I hope as you guys are developing this, which I'm very happy to see you are that you'll consider either doing these or partnering with others to do these things.

Allan Mount [01:08:51] Right?

Kattie Mount [01:08:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:52] And I'll just tell listeners, you know, Julie and I or Natasha and I want to do more of these and they're phenomenal. And it's really important to have a believing therapist and a non believing therapist, of course, and other research resources. So I just want to seed. I want to plant that seed in your brain as you're thinking about it because they're really powerful. A couple quick questions. Any, Any sense for how the church. Well, what are you able to say about how the church may or may not perceive what you're doing? Have you got any negative or positive feedback, back channel stuff? What are you able to say about that?

Allan Mount [01:09:24] I think the, the furthest we would go saying with that is. Is talking with a. Oh, gosh.

John Dehlin [01:09:34] No, I phrased it the way I phrased it.

Allan Mount [01:09:36] I know you did too.

Kattie Mount [01:09:37] Thank you.

Allan Mount [01:09:38] I know you're great. No, we had a past leader tell us that he felt. This is. Actually in that episode that we talked about President Nelson's talk. So fear versus Love. We had a past leader that we both knew very well tell us that our podcast was inappropriate. That it, it was leading people out of the church, making it okay to leave the church, and that was making

Kattie Mount [01:10:06] it okay to have and live in a mixed faith marriage.

Allan Mount [01:10:10] Yeah, that was really like you're somehow

John Dehlin [01:10:13] glorifying or encouraging it or normalizing, encouraging

Kattie Mount [01:10:18] people to stay together. And that's wrong.

Allan Mount [01:10:19] Yeah. He said that he had listened. I'm not quite convinced that he had based on how he spoke about it. But I just. Dude, I just. What else was I supposed to say to him? I just said, I disagree. If you listen to it. We don't talk about anything to do with the truth claims. We're not advocating for people.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] As if that's bad because the church releases essays about the truth claims.

Allan Mount [01:10:40] Exactly. Exactly.

Kattie Mount [01:10:42] But.

John Dehlin [01:10:42] So you're holding yourself to a higher standard than the church. Sure.

Allan Mount [01:10:45] Sure does try. But, you know, we just want to recognize that people find themselves in this situation and they need someone to listen to. And if this can be a spark for them to have conversations with their spouse, that's what we're going to do. And he just said, it's not appropriate. You shouldn't be doing it. And that was hard. Kattie was in the room, but not next to me, when he told me this. So I went back and told her, and that was a whole nother.

John Dehlin [01:11:10] Kattie, what are your thoughts and feelings as the believer? You. What are your thoughts and feelings about that?

Kattie Mount [01:11:15] I don't know. Sometimes I feel like, especially being the primary president, I feel like I can promote some change within because I have a leadership role and I can say things and do things in a certain way that will be beneficial. But when I hear things like this, I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall.

Kattie Mount [01:11:39] Just invalidates everything Ellen and I have done for the past year and a half. And it hurts. I feel like. I feel like because we've had such great, wonderful leaders at the bottom, hearing this from someone closer to the top, it hurts me because I feel like there's such a disconnect between the two.

Kattie Mount [01:12:01] And I feel like I've heard great things for my Sikh president about staying with my husband. And then I hear other things, and I just feel like, is our bishop and stake president just telling us things we want to hear? Should they be telling us what we're hearing from the higher resources? And that frustrates me.

John Dehlin [01:12:24] Yeah. Like, when I first saw that slide that I was named as a named enemy of the church, you know, at, you know, first presidency, quorum of the 12 strategy meetings, they're naming Denver snuffer and me and ordain women and others as enemies of the church.

John Dehlin [01:12:42] It's just so weird because all you're trying to do, it's so what we're trying to do is so Mormon and so Christian. And I don't mean to, like, it's not about boasting, but it's like, what did we learn from Jesus and Mormonism? Alleviate suffering. Reach out to the 1, leave the 99 to go after the 1. Put your shoulder to the wheel. Do what is right. Let the you know, all these virtues of service and charity are totally rooted in Christianity and Mormonism. And then it's just so weird. And this happened when I was just trying to help the church do better with lgbt People or help the church do better with people in faith crisis or mixed faith marriages.

John Dehlin [01:13:21] Then all of a sudden you're like, find out that the church views you as an enemy. It's crazy. It's like, how do you create your enemies list? It reminds me of, you know, Lee and Cody Young. All they're doing is creating a support group for people in Columbus, Ohio. They're excommunicated for creating a support group for progressive and post Mormon. And they don't even talk about truth claims and their get togethers. Like, I just. Salt Lake City. Your enemies list needs improvement.

Allan Mount [01:13:49] Well, you know, and we've had conversations about. About that, because for me to be excommunicated. Okay, that's fine. But, yeah, Kattie, what do you think?

Kattie Mount [01:14:02] It would be devastating for me.

Allan Mount [01:14:04] And I realized that too. And so to what?

John Dehlin [01:14:07] Why talk about that?

Kattie Mount [01:14:09] Well, I mean, to be punished for just providing support for other people seems, like, so harsh, especially where I've never targeted anyone. I've never called anyone out. I've never talked about truth claims. I've never talked about anything. And I'm still, like, treading water. And so.

Allan Mount [01:14:26] Are you afraid staying?

Kattie Mount [01:14:28] Yeah. Like, if I'm being completely honest, I have been. You came to us a year ago and asked us to be on Mormon stories. Right. And I was like, no way. I won't do that. I'm not. I wasn't ready to be like that public. And, like, I've really struggled with even coming to this interview, if I'm being honest.

John Dehlin [01:14:56] Sure.

Kattie Mount [01:14:57] Because I don't want more ammunition against me when I haven't done anything wrong. And so, yeah, it would be really hard if, like, I was punished in some way for doing nothing.

John Dehlin [01:15:13] What made you want to. What made you want to risk it? Or what keeps you going when you're scared about what might happen?

Kattie Mount [01:15:19] Well, today it's couches.

John Dehlin [01:15:23] What do.

Allan Mount [01:15:23] You got to give some context. You got to give some context.

Kattie Mount [01:15:26] Oh, Allan. Allan's like, hey, John's gonna do this marriage, you know, marriage series. And what do you think? Are you ready about going on? And I just said, I. I don't know. I don't. I don't know if I can do that, especially with some of the recent stuff that's happened to us. And I just said, that worries me. And he's like, think about all the people that we'd be helping and the larger audience that would be able to hear our message and then listen to the podcast and refer it to a friend or refer it to someone that they Know that needs it. And that got me. And then I sort of said, well, I'll only do it if I get new couches.

John Dehlin [01:16:06] So you bought her off, Allan, Matt.

Allan Mount [01:16:08] I bought her off. Bab.

John Dehlin [01:16:11] Show me the money.

Kattie Mount [01:16:12] I didn't get to pick them yet. So, you know, after the interview, I'll get to go pick new characters.

Allan Mount [01:16:16] I'm going to RC Willie right after that.

John Dehlin [01:16:19] So if they donate to marriage on a tightrope, do you get the money? Does Bill get the money? How does that work?

Allan Mount [01:16:24] It goes to Bill. It's mostly. I mean, yeah, donating to Marriage on a Tightrope is the best way if you want to support, because you can donate directly to Mormon discussions. What we've decided to do with any donations to come through is to help.

Kattie Mount [01:16:38] Help.

Allan Mount [01:16:39] Just put it right back in to help support the cause. So if we go to dinner with couples, that's what we're using if we make a trip out to see a couple. So yes, the portion of the money does come to us directly and donating through.

Kattie Mount [01:16:51] But, but it goes all, it goes all back into the podcast.

Allan Mount [01:16:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:54] Okay, so if they, so if someone wants to donate to support you guys, they go to marginatite.org and they donate through PayPal.

Allan Mount [01:17:02] Yeah, there's, there's a, there's a link about midway down the page on the right hand side, and you have a

John Dehlin [01:17:07] revenue sharing deal with Bill where he gets part of the money. You get part of the money.

Allan Mount [01:17:10] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] Okay. And then you're saying with the money that you guys get, you put back into the podcast.

Kattie Mount [01:17:16] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:18] To, to, to support the mission. Well, I want to donate money to pay. Help pay for your couch.

Kattie Mount [01:17:23] No, I do.

John Dehlin [01:17:25] No, no, no, there is. Listen, listen. This is weird. Mormons are so weird about, about money. I'm gonna, I'm gonna address this right now. Like, doctors spend their lives saving lives. Lawyers help people out of legal jams. Dentists fix teeth. Engineers build bridges. Like in every other area of the world, when people are trying to do good, they have, they charge and they get money. And they use that money not just to plow back into the good they're doing, but to also support their families. You guys are spending time and effort tirelessly saving marriages, supporting families. You. I, I believe that people should get support personally.

Allan Mount [01:18:04] Right.

John Dehlin [01:18:05] And it's not because this is self serving. It's because that's how it's sustainable. We've seen so many people burn out and stop doing good in the progressive and post Mormon space because it's not sustainable because how do you justify the time and the energy and the stress and the heartache and the expenses? How do you justify all that time away? If we don't make it sustainable, then. Then we lose our talent. We lose our people that are helping people. So you guys deserve. So I want to. I want to. I want people to know. Okay. Support Bill Realm. We want that. We're not trying to take away from Bill. Real and Mormon discussions. Support that. Support marriage in a tightrope. And how can they help you buy a couch? What if people want to support your couch?

Allan Mount [01:18:47] We are. We are registered. We're registered at Bed Bath. No, we're not. I'm just kidding. No.

John Dehlin [01:18:54] So right now there's no way for people to support you directly for your life?

Allan Mount [01:18:58] No. I mean, we're not asking, but. John, this is awkward.

John Dehlin [01:19:02] I know. I'm going there.

Allan Mount [01:19:04] If you want to sustain, I want

John Dehlin [01:19:06] this to be sustainable.

Allan Mount [01:19:07] The best way to do it is through the marriage on a tightrope.

John Dehlin [01:19:09] Okay. Donate to marriage on a tightrope.org yeah. And. All right. Is there anything else we need to talk about before we take a break? And I'm not even sure It's. It's. It's 1:15, so we're four hours in and. And I don't even know what Cody can do. So we may or may not be coming back really quickly. Cody, what's your time?

Kattie Mount [01:19:30] I think we're past time. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:33] Okay. Okay.

Allan Mount [01:19:35] Yeah, we can.

John Dehlin [01:19:36] So what we're going to do is we're going to end this four hour, epic, amazing interview with Allan and Kattie Mount. We're going to save the next episode for another recording session. And what we're going to do, we had this amazing Thrive event where we had 300 progressive and post Mormons come to Salt Lake. Amazing presentations by John Larsen, by Christian Moore, by Margi, by Natasha Alford Parker, by John Dehal. What?

Allan Mount [01:20:03] By John Dehynn.

Kattie Mount [01:20:03] JohnDylan.

John Dehlin [01:20:04] Oh, thank you. By our buddy Miller.

Allan Mount [01:20:09] Yeah. Anthony Miller.

John Dehlin [01:20:10] Anthony Miller. David Bachavoy, Zelf on the shelf. Ernie and Gary and Ernie Horstmanshafer. I don't know how to pronounce her last name. Amazing people. Chelsea and Jeff Gardner. All these amazing people giving amazing talks. You guys gave an amazing talk on navigating mixed faith marriage. And I'm like, we gotta share this goodness. So what we're gonna do as a joint partnership with Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast, because that's. I want that to be a one stop shop for people going through a faith Crisis. We'll release on Mormon stories as well, and you can release it on yours. But we basically want to have you guys share the tips of what you've learned for how to navigate a faith crisis.

John Dehlin [01:20:51] And I'll be sharing my tips too. And we're going to just give couples, like one or two hours of like, intense support for what to do and what not to do as a believer, as a non believer in a mixed faith marriage, how to deal with the kids. We're gonna, we're gonna get into it and that's gonna be a setup for then several interviews where we're gonna interview mixed faith couples and we're gonna, we're gonna plug the cred out of what you guys do as well, because you guys are specialists. Even though I've been also doing this work for 14 years, so.

Allan Mount [01:21:23] Or 20, so we've got 18 months under our belt.

John Dehlin [01:21:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's. But especially specialized.

Allan Mount [01:21:29] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:21:29] You know, I specialize in this too, but so does Natasha. But. Yeah, but you guys are like really laser beaming in, so. So all I'm saying is thank you for today. It's been amazing.

Allan Mount [01:21:40] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:21:41] It's really good stuff. Thanks to all the listeners who have tuned in. Thanks everyone who's listening in offline. And stay tuned because you have not heard anything yet. We're going to have Allan and K. Kattie back for more goodness about how to navigate a mixed faith marriage. And we're gonna have more interviews and they're gonna do a lot of more cool stuff in the future. So lots of good mixed faith marriage stuff coming down the pike.

Allan Mount [01:22:06] Thanks for having me.

Kattie Mount [01:22:07] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:22:08] Any final words to wrap up this episode?

Kattie Mount [01:22:10] No.

Allan Mount [01:22:10] No.

John Dehlin [01:22:11] We love you.

Kattie Mount [01:22:11] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] We love you.

Allan Mount [01:22:12] Well, we've gotten about six missed calls from our kids.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] Was this okay? Like, was your. Your worst fears realized?

Kattie Mount [01:22:20] I didn't throw up. No, it was, it was great. It was great. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

John Dehlin [01:22:25] Well, thanks to you guys. On behalf of all our listeners that are basically saying, you're amazing, you've saved their lives, I just want to, on behalf, you know, Charlene wrote. Love this interview. Thank you, Allan and Kattie. Thanks, John. Such a thoughtful and respective, you know, interview. Jessica's writing. We love you, Kattie and Allan, like, you guys are really universally loved. So, you know, as a temporary, for the moment, spokesperson for whoever's out there, thank you so much for, you know, putting your shoulder to the wheel, alleviating suffering and promoting healing and joy in our little corner of the world. You guys deserve to be honored.

Kattie Mount [01:23:00] Thank you.

Allan Mount [01:23:00] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:23:01] So thank you and keep it up.

Allan Mount [01:23:05] We will.

John Dehlin [01:23:05] And we'll see you soon.

Kattie Mount [01:23:06] Yes, we will.

John Dehlin [01:23:07] Marriage in a tightrope.com.org is the URL podcast by the same name and thank you for joining us today. Email them at Marriage on a tightrope gmail.com donate to them. And for those of you who value this content on Mormon Stories, support us to support Bill Real Support Radio Free Mormon Support all the goodness Sunstone, John Larsen, Zelf. Everyone deserves Natasha for Parker Mormon Mental Health Podcast, Mormon Faith Crisis. Support it all. Use your tithing. Use your progressive and post Mormon tithing for good causes because this material is saving lives and changing, saving families and we all need it. So continue supporting us in all these different areas.

John Dehlin [01:23:54] Thanks for everything and let's do more cool things in the months and years ahead. Everybody take care. Allan and Kattie, thanks Cody Layton for his work. Thanks to the Open Source Foundation. Thanks to you listeners and we'll see you guys 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.