Curtis Growing Up in the Church

Bruce Rognan [00:00:00] I'm a convert to the church. I joined when I was eight years old, however, but I was baptized pretty young. But my mother joined and I grew up very active. Never missed a single priesthood meeting, Sunday school, very active in everything that I did.

Bruce Rognan [00:00:16] Went on a mission to Australia. Kind of worked your way up, district leader, zone leader. You get a feel that you're on the right track. I came back from byu, graduated from byu, went on kind of feeling like I'm still in the church, doing a good job. Move up. And I don't know if I say move up, but turning the bishopric and stake mission president and the high Council all in my form. I was 32 years old. And it's almost like the church infuses into you that you're on the right path if you're progressing along on that direction. I don't know if that's ego and that you've got to work on that, if it's just the Mormon ego at work.

Bruce Rognan [00:01:00] But I feeling pretty good about the way things are going. I had five children and I thought I was a wonderful father. I would certainly like to spend more time with him. Curtis was the model child. He was absolutely incredible in terms of talent. His artistic ability was just amazing. He had three art scholarships to Ricks College.

Bruce Rognan [00:01:25] When his art teacher at high school found out about his death, they said, we want to change the name of this whole hall to the Curtis Rogen hall because he was just such a phenomenal artist and what he did.

Bruce Rognan [00:01:38] But it wasn't just that it was music. He was very talented in music. He was in a lot of singing groups when he was young and he was just, you would call it the model child. I mean, he was outgoing, he was, well, speaking, he was articulate, but he was reserved.

Bruce Rognan [00:01:56] He appeared to have followed the path that we wanted him to follow. I mean, he was the president or the leader of every quorum that he was in when he was. He never missed a day at seminary and you know, seminary in Chicago. Growing up, I mean, you got to wake up at 4:30 to 5:00 clock to be. To work, to go to seminary on time and, and I mean he never complained. He was there every time and he was a leader and you know, we were proud of that and we liked that, that he was so active. He liked Boy Scouts but wasn't really pursuing it.

Bruce Rognan [00:02:32] He never did get his Eagle Award, but he. We had no signs that anything was ever wrong. He had his individual prayers all the time. In fact, in some of his journals he would write you know, why doesn't the Lord answer my prayers? Because he pled and he really prayed. He read the Scriptures all the time. He was a very studious scholar of the Scriptures.

Bruce Rognan [00:02:56] We had no idea anything was wrong. There was no signs that he was depressed and that he was thinking about suicide at any point in his life.

Chris Rognan [00:03:04] He was four years older than me. We moved around quite a bit. So he didn't have a. He'd never really made many really close friends.

John Dehlin [00:03:15] He.

Chris Rognan [00:03:16] My mom taught him to sing in church. I don't know if he necessarily liked it that much, but my mom, it was her first child, and she kind of shaped him and modeled him. He definitely excelled in academics quite a bit, but pursuits. Not into sports? Not at all. Not even remotely.

Chris Rognan [00:03:38] He was big into music. He didn't play any instruments, but. No, just singing in front of people. My brother has always been a really. Well, always was a very, very good artist. Really introspective. And his. Really, one of his themes was puzzles that he liked to draw and mazes. And he was really, you know, from growing up, always into art. Not many friends ever. And he never dated maybe a few times.

Chris Rognan [00:04:19] Not really into that, and didn't really care. And he didn't really care about having a social relationship with a lot of people. He was really isolated and really confined to his room for the most time. Listening to music and making art and just thinking about things on his wall. He had.

Bruce Rognan [00:04:41] It was probably

Chris Rognan [00:04:43] 10, well, 8ft by 15ft of just murals and expressing his pain, his ambition, his hopes, desires, everything just culminated into his artwork on his wall. And he was just immersed into artwork. And a lot of his sorrow and his pain and what he was feeling

John Dehlin [00:05:02] would come out in the art.

Chris Rognan [00:05:03] Yeah, it would come out in the art. And the thing is, he tried to not make it very apparent. A lot of his stuff is really hidden, really, really subtle and layered. Like in his suicide journal. Well, yeah, if I can call it that. He had cryptography of. If you want to understand me, you got to figure this out. It was kind of insane to see the intricacy of everything that was laid out and the detail. And I mean, it was. It was really amazing to see how much time he put into it. I mean, it's unfortunate that he killed himself, but there was a lot of pain and affliction.

Bruce Rognan [00:05:41] My first two sons are complete polar opposites of each other. Cameron, the youngest son, the second son, I should say, absolutely macho, athletic. He had to be the quarterback of the football. He had to be the best Basketball player, everything masculine, macho, the stereotype.

Bruce Rognan [00:06:07] And Curtis was much more completely from birth. These things are there. Curtis from the beginning was very more into the arts, more, more into culture, more into music and cleanliness. And it was, I mean we didn't program that into him in any way. I mean this is just who they were and that was just what they were attracted to. And Curtis always had girlfriends that were just like his boyfriends. He just would hang out with them but.

Bruce Rognan [00:06:48] And develop a lot of feminine traits, if you will, whereas the other son never did. And I don't think that I did anything different. Raising the one son versus the other son. I think it was just a matter of how they responded to the environment and what was going on around them.

Bruce Rognan [00:07:08] He had very peculiar hobbies as a boy. When he was in sixth grade, he still liked to, to play with his girlfriends. He didn't play with guys. He would never play sports. He never played sports at all. When he was even as late as like seventh grade, he still liked to play dolls with the girls that were down the street or not. You know, just played with them doing their kind of stuff. So I mean Dallas was maybe outgrown maybe by sixth grade. I'm trying to think. It was 87 when we left there. So he was 10 years old. So he was in fifth grade and he was still playing with the neighborhood girls with dolls.

Bruce Rognan [00:07:44] And he enjoyed it. And then he had a soap collection. He had collection. His shirts were in order from light to dark, short sleeve to long sleeve. He had three digital clocks in his room and everyone had to go at the same time. This kid was not a kid into the dark side. He was a kid that was going into doing things right. Everything had to be perfect. His standards of perfection were intense. His papers were perfection. Everything he did was about that, getting it right and making sure that it was right.

Chris Rognan [00:08:20] It wasn't necessarily homosexuality, but it was more of gender issue. It was am I born in the right body? And not being comfortable in his own skin and not being able to even express that or even come to grips of understanding it. He didn't know from my talking with him. I don't think he engaged in any homosexual activity. Maybe really, really, really mild. But I think it was just a fear that he couldn't be real. But he didn't even know what real was.

Bruce Rognan [00:08:57] It was interesting because he was tall, good looking kid, and intentionally. I can only think of two dates that he went on that I was aware of that I would really call them a date. And they were both with outcasts, they were both with girls that were 100 pounds overweight and were very plain or homely. I don't know what's the politically correct term to use there, but that made him feel good, that made him feel special. And so there was not about. He was not, I think, in any way attracted to the female form in any kind of sexual way.

Chris Rognan [00:09:42] He definitely had gender issues. In his journal that was intercepted, he sent that out to one of his friends, the police actually intercepted that. And we have a journal that he never intended for us to see, but there were pictures of basically just. I can't think of the word. What is the word for non descript humans without penises or boobs?

John Dehlin [00:10:14] Hermaphrodites.

Chris Rognan [00:10:15] Not a hermaphrodite? No, no, no, no. Muse. So. And yeah, hermaphrodite.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] So sexually indescribed? Sort of.

Bruce Rognan [00:10:24] Yeah.

Chris Rognan [00:10:25] And that's what he felt. I mean, he was a manly, like he was a big guy, but he felt he was. He was always feminine, always really, really feminine. Played with Barbies, had a lisp. Like most people would probably say if they have gaydar, he would be perceived as being gay. I don't know if that's necessarily true that he was gay. I just think that he had major. He was born in a wrong body in a way, which is weird to say because it's my brother.

Bruce Rognan [00:10:56] He was an artist and he painted mural on his room that was like 14 foot by 8 foot tall. And it was just filled with intricate details. I mean, it was just amazing how he did that. And it took us really months to decipher it. And we didn't dare paint over it because we thought there might be clues because we thought there was something hidden in him because it was like so shock to us that he would do that.

Bruce Rognan [00:11:22] And so what we found is we found a lot of clues. And we looked in his journals and in his writing and with other letters to other friends and there were some clues. He was clearly confused about gender issues and he was wrestling and struggling and he just didn't know how to handle that. He wrote he was not in any way attracted to any girl that he was dating in. And just nothing happened. There was no sexual attraction in any way to any female. He dated a few females, but I wouldn't really call it dating. He would hang out with them.

Bruce Rognan [00:11:57] And in his letters or in his journal, there were some entries in there that really zeroed in. He says, my whole life is a puzzle and this whole thing will Be a puzzle for you, but only I will know the final puzzle piece. And so he was very clear not to spell out this is what is the cause. But you read the journal and you read the puzzle pieces and there are some other pieces in there that made it pretty apparent to me. It took me about two months to really come to grips with what the story was. I mean, what was the story? Here's the loudest thing my son had ever done in his life. And I don't know the story, you know, so I really focused on trying to get what that story was.

John Dehlin [00:12:43] Did you ever get the sense that he was into drugs or alcohol?

Bruce Rognan [00:12:46] Never, never. In fact, he was so clear in his journal, in his last suicide note, he says, I want to assure you I've never had drugs. I have never had alcohol. And he felt completely worthy in every way to go on a mission. He felt in terms of the word of wisdom stuff. Okay, so, yeah, no, there was never any problem in that direction at all.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] Is there any evidence that he. That he didn't want to be different? That he wanted to just try and be a guy and a man and like women and be the normal teenage boy and tried to fight or suppress what he was feeling?

Bruce Rognan [00:13:31] Oh, he tried.

John Dehlin [00:13:33] So he tried to make it go away.

Bruce Rognan [00:13:34] Oh, no, he tried to make it go. He says I'm an anomaly. And he would write in his journal, I feel like I must be androgynous. I don't know if I'm a male or female. He says, I don't know who to relate to. He says, when I relate to guys, he says, I'm just. It's a mask. I'm just putting on a show. I'm not. Or when I'm talking to girls, I'm just putting on. I'm just putting on this different personana.

Curtis Comes Out and Struggles to Belong

Bruce Rognan [00:14:00] But he specified he was tired of living in this mask. I'm tired of living behind being so different. And he used the word anomaly. I just don't fit in. I don't know where to fit in. And so, I mean, obviously the mission was not going to be.

Bruce Rognan [00:14:19] He couldn't fit in with that either. And so that was his last mission. His last signal to the world was, you know, here's my mission papers. They're right on my bed. You know, they're all complete, but I have not signed them.

Bruce Rognan [00:14:32] Sorry, mom and Dad, I can't go on a mission. I don't fit in there either. And it's like Dag Hammershald said a quote that gave me a Lot of comfort after this whole thing was,

Chris Rognan [00:14:45] you

Bruce Rognan [00:14:45] know, suicide is the only form of rebellion against the social norm. It's the only way you can get out of a culture you're trapped in. I'm misquoting it a little bit, but that was the only thing he could do. He was powerless to do anything else. He couldn't go here. He didn't know where to go. And the church didn't have the support for him, for him.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] Did it ever occur to you or your wife that he might be gay? Did you ever have that conversation?

Bruce Rognan [00:15:09] Not the conversation.

John Dehlin [00:15:10] You and your wife.

Bruce Rognan [00:15:12] Not until the night when we started reading his suicide letters and everything else after. Then we did. After he had. Oh, yeah, yeah. And we. We did. And we. I mean.

John Dehlin [00:15:22] But before his death, you had not talked about it?

Bruce Rognan [00:15:24] Had never talked about it.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] Never. Yeah. Your son had mentioned him as being kind of effeminate, as being artsy, as being.

Bruce Rognan [00:15:30] I know, I know. In the closet and all of his mannerisms and things. Yeah, you would think we would have had that premonition. It did hit me once, and I was at a workshop on diversity. It was the first workshop I'd ever been to on diversity.

Bruce Rognan [00:15:46] And the trainer, Toby Tompkins, he was just an awesome trainer. And as he was speaking, he was a gay man. And as he was speaking, I started hearing his story and I started hearing this stuff, and I said, boy, this sounds like my son. This sounds like. You know. And it was like this first. Aha.

Bruce Rognan [00:16:06] You know, and it was like a test for me. Could I be able to love my son if he were gay? And I even wrote it down in my journal. It had a profound effect on me. And I had that thought at the time. He was going to school up at Ricks College.

Bruce Rognan [00:16:25] And I never. And this is probably the. I mean, there's not a probably about it. This is my biggest guilt over everything is at that moment, I felt I had this premonition that I should talk to him about that issue. But I was so embarrassed. I didn't know how.

John Dehlin [00:16:51] Did you have a calling at the time?

Bruce Rognan [00:16:53] I was. I think at the time. I was in the High council at the time.

John Dehlin [00:16:57] Stake High Council.

Bruce Rognan [00:16:58] Stake High Council. And I had this premonition that I should. Should open this up and just talk about it if he wanted to talk about it. That's my pain. That's my sorrow.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] You said you were embarrassed. You felt too embarrassed.

Bruce Rognan [00:17:18] Yeah, that I didn't talk to him and say, I would love you no matter what. I mean, obviously, I would have loved him no matter what, even before he had that awareness. But his perception perhaps would have been, I don't fit in with dad because how can you be a gay and go on a mission? How can you be gay and serve and go get married in the temple? It was just his expectation of what my life was all about didn't make sense to that frame reference.

Chris Rognan [00:17:49] He went to. It's now byu, Idaho. It was Rick's college. And he hated it. He hated the conformity. He hated being somebody that he wasn't. And he was finally getting away from family. But now he had this other pressure of. Well, it's pretty much the same, this Mormon pressure to be the certain way he couldn't grow sideburns, he couldn't be the person he wanted to be. But he really did like the experience of some of his teachers that taught him to be real and thought, think outside the box, even if I don't think a box exists. But

Bruce Rognan [00:18:29] he couldn't fit in to that Mormon mold like I was in. You know, I fit the mold. I was doing the mold, you know, whether it was driven by my ego or my righteousness or. I don't know what it was, but I had created the mold. And I would expect my sons to follow up in that same, same exact mold. And he didn't fit in to that same mold. And, you know, the pain is not being able to tell him, hey, it's not the mold that I wanted you to. I loved you because you were following in the same path that I had to follow. That had nothing to do with it. You know, I would have loved you regardless. And I mean, our last words were very warm and very loving, but still, that did not get spoken of. That whole issue of, son, I would love you if you were gay.

Chris Rognan [00:19:26] Well, prior to his death, we lived in Chicago at the time, and my whole family is from Utah. I had previously been in Utah, and I went back to Chicago, back home. I came here for summer about 12 years ago, and he picked me up at the airport. And it was just basically me and my brother for two weeks. So two weeks prior to his death, we really got close. We really saw eye to eye and got to talk a lot about the church. I was only 14 at the time. No, I'd barely turned 15. And there were a lot of things that I couldn't answer or even. I'd never even heard the questions before. But I certainly could feel what his problems were. I could certainly see that there were issues that he was having, but I didn't really act on it. And I didn't facilitate my language to help him with his problems.

John Dehlin [00:20:32] You were 14?

Chris Rognan [00:20:33] I was 14. His final day, he took me out. He bought me a few shirts, and it was weird because I was laying down. And he's like, hey, hey, Chris, do you want to come get some food? And I'm like, no, I don't think so. And he's like, well, this is the last time I asked you. And the way that he said it, it was really just really sincere. But really, I don't know, it was different. So I'm like, yeah, I'll go and eat. And so we went to eat, which is odd for him. And he actually regrets eating. In his journal, he writes down because he had weight issues, anorexic.

Chris Rognan [00:21:13] But that day, he finally got to 165 pounds, which is the weight I was. He was 6 foot 5, big guy. And so he attained the goal of getting 165 pounds, so. So he took me out and we ate. We had a really good time.

Chris Rognan [00:21:31] And he sent a package out to one of his girlfriends. It wasn't a girlfriend, but one of his girlfriends at college. Of a lot of his memorabilia.

Bruce Rognan [00:21:40] What was, to me the single most important message of his last day and what echoes still today is right there on his bedspread, he put his mission papers, all signed out. I mean, all filled out except for the signature, as if to say, you know, I cannot do this because of who I am, but I'm worthy. But I'm worthy. Yeah, I've done it. I've done all this stuff. I've completed every single thing that they've asked me to do. He's read the Book of Mormon. He's read the Doctrine and Covenants. He's read the New Testament. He really understood the scriptures very well. I mean, it wasn't as if he didn't understand.

Bruce Rognan [00:22:17] He did have some issues. He did have some issues about the Joseph Smith story from. He was a good historian. I mean, he really read. He knew a lot. He was well read. I'd say he read probably four or five different books on early church history to feel like, if it was really any. It troubled him about the Joseph Smith story. Why? There were various, you know, versions of that story, and there was some letter there and a letter to us that explained just a little bit, just a little. Just gave us a few puzzles. What did he say in the suicide letter?

Bruce Rognan [00:23:00] It was, oh, gosh, I haven't read it for a while now. But to me, the thing that Stands out the clearest is it's who am I, what is my gender, who do I fit with? You know, I'm not attracted to females.

John Dehlin [00:23:24] He said this in his letter.

Bruce Rognan [00:23:25] He didn't write that, but that's what it is. It says I can't. I mean that's, it was very plain to my wife and I that he used the word androgyny. He didn't use the word gay ever. He used the word androgyny and he used the word I'm an anomaly. That was like the two biggest words that we were looking at, which are not typical words for a 19 year old kid to look at, but it was the gender issue. How do I fit in here into this world?

Bruce Rognan [00:23:56] I don't fit in, in this Mormon path. I've done everything I can possibly think of to find, follow the Mormon way and that hasn't provided me with the answers, it hasn't provided me with a peace. And I've tried some other things and I'm still not.

Bruce Rognan [00:24:10] I don't know how this can reconcile for a future. How can I? The family unit being so powerful of an institution, especially in the Mormon culture. What does he do about it?

Chris Rognan [00:24:23] Later that day he basically was preparing himself. He listened to music, wrote in his journal and just trying to be in the moment and figure, figure things out. I don't know exactly what he was doing, but he was pretty much in solitude. And the next morning, it was a Sunday, I woke up and I couldn't find him anywhere. I kind of overslept and, and I'm trying to find him and I thought he went to church and so I went to hang out with my friends because I didn't have parents. It was cool, I could do whatever I wanted. And then I came back and I sensed, not only sense, I knew something was wrong.

Loss, Grief, and the Road to Healing

Chris Rognan [00:25:06] I could smell carbon monoxide and I ran into the garage and I found him hanging. He got some cables and he hung himself. And initially he tried to kill himself with just the carbon monoxide of a car, but that didn't work, so he hung himself. And I called 911 and that's pretty much it. I mean, seeing my brother completely lifeless at that.

Bruce Rognan [00:25:34] One thing that I found is that when I was trying to get comfort for all of this is again my whole focus was is there any meaning in his death? What is it for me and how have I changed? I mean, since that point I've just turned my whole practice focusing on diversity training so that I want to teach other people. Hey, let's love people, let's not love them based on categories or groups or race or gender, sexual orientation. And so that's really been my message for the last 12 years since he's left, is focusing my energy and talent on teaching corporate America how to do that.

Bruce Rognan [00:26:17] But at the same time, the only way I've been able to come to grips with that is to really go back to my roots, my Mormonism upbringing, even though I was a convert at a young age, and re examine all of those belief systems that I had. And what I found was I looked at Chris and his ministry and the first thing that he did when he went into the ministry, I mean, right after the wilderness, he gets in front of the congregation, synagogue of the Jews, and he opens up the Scriptures and he says, he turns to Isaiah 61 and he says, here he reads it, which says, to proclaim liberty to the captive and to heal the brokenhearted.

Bruce Rognan [00:27:02] And then Chris said, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. In other words, Chris declared his ministry proclaim liberty to the people that are captive. And who was his ministry to? His ministry was to the captives, it was to the lepers, it was to the publicans, it was to the outcasts, the adulterers, the ones that didn't fit in with the power base in Jerusalem. And that's who he served, that's who all his miracles were for. That's all his teaching focused on serving them.

Bruce Rognan [00:27:38] And what did he do? He healed their broken heart. And then I looked at my son and talk about being captive. Here he is captive in this power base of the Mormon structure of this is the way it is.

Bruce Rognan [00:27:56] This is the structure, this is the path you will follow. You will go through all these steps of the Aaronic priesthood. You will go be ordained, you will be a missionary, you will be married in the temple. That whole path, that was the path that he wanted to be on. But he had no liberty, he had no freedom in the culture. He had no family to support to make that work.

Bruce Rognan [00:28:21] And so who could heal his broken heart? He begged in his prayers for God to heal his broken heart. And no one answered the prayers. I wasn't there for him to answer the prayers. The church wasn't there to answer that prayer. And yet you look at what Chris's whole message, what was it? Heal the brokenhearted, the ones that are in bondage and the ones that are cast out. And from that moment on, that scripture I always think about, and maybe it gives me the peace to know that that's really if Chris would have been here. What would he have done with my son that I didn't know?

Bruce Rognan [00:29:08] And I know the answer. I know what Chris would have done. I just wish I would have been more Chris, like at that time. I wouldn't have lost a son.

John Dehlin [00:29:19] What would Chris have done?

Bruce Rognan [00:29:30] There's a picture. I don't know who the artist is, but it's a picture of the Savior greeting a man into A young man into the. Into heaven, as if, here I am. I've missed you. I long to see you. I saw that picture just shortly after Curtis died. And what the Savior would have done was just that, completely embraced him, loved him for who he is, not for whatever other path he was choosing or what category he was part of. It was unconditional. He loved the person. He loved the soul. He didn't love the outside, the exterior. And yeah, I know that. I know that's what he would have done.

John Dehlin [00:30:30] Their parents and bishops and ward members who are going to have the exact same setup and they're just not going to know it. They're going to relive what you've lived. Because this is. Your story is not. And your son's story is not unique. It's not solitary. There are many others. What are things they can do differently to maybe have a better outcome.

Bruce Rognan [00:30:59] Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, this is, I think, not just a. That's not a fluke, a once in a lifetime thing. I spoke at anami, which is the national association of Mental Illness, a while ago at a symposium.

Bruce Rognan [00:31:15] And I mean, Utah and Nevada and Oregon and Seattle and very prominent LDS areas lead America in suicide deaths from the age of 18 to 25. And it's not even close in terms of that age group. But when you even add all of the suicides, we still are very high. I know it's a prevalent issue. And I think even a lot of deaths before missions that are masked as car accidents or masked as other things really are the same kind of a plea for help. They don't know what to do. They can't do the mission experience because they don't feel they can go to their bishop and say what needs to be said.

Bruce Rognan [00:31:57] And so my advice to the parents is. Have the hard talk. I had the hard talk with my son. We talked about these issues. And I did the talking. I gave the lecture, I gave the information. I told them, here is the position, here is what you need to do. Masturbation is wrong.

Bruce Rognan [00:32:27] Don't do petting, necking with women. Don't do these things. This is the law. Here's the scriptures. Read it, read the. And I went through one by one on the youth card that they have, and I went through all of that stuff.

Bruce Rognan [00:32:41] And I'm thinking I'm doing a good job as a parent because I'm doing what I'm told to do. But I did in no way really seek to understand what he was feeling about any of those issues on that little card or what I was going through or what he was going through. I didn't get his side. I was just presenting it one way, thinking that that's the way it is. But when they're that old, there's already feelings, there's already inclinations, and I wasn't sensitive to really zero in on using my eyes and using my ears fully to understand what he's really trying to say. And that's, I think, the thing that I've learned, the biggest lesson I've learned since he died is it's what is not said that is the most important thing.

Bruce Rognan [00:33:28] The things that Curtis didn't say are the most important things of his whole life. And so, like in every conversation, what is the body language telling me about? What is this child not saying? What is going neglected, what is still there?

Bruce Rognan [00:33:45] And that's what I'd say to parents is just really seek to listen with your eyes and understand what issues may be there and pick up on it and have the big talk and really let them do the talking.

Chris Rognan [00:33:57] Not you.

Bruce Rognan [00:33:58] You talk 5%. Let them do the talking.

John Dehlin [00:34:01] What about to bishops or to the church? Say to the ward family, and then we'll talk about the ward family, bishop and ward family. What could be done to make an environment where people don't feel like this is their only option?

Bruce Rognan [00:34:28] Let me think here. How's the best approach for this? I'm trying to think. Having. Let me. I guess I'll say it this way. Having been in the High Council when I lived in, in Provo, I saw, I'm going to guess, 30 excommunications in my life while I was serving in that High Council. And in that time, I really saw that a lot of those issues that came up really started at a very, very young age. And they were unexpressed. And I can't remember who said the phrase, but unexpressed feelings never die. They are buried alive and they come forth later in uglier ways. And the fact that there's no way these people to feel safe, to express themselves because the structure of the church is so strict on A specific policy that if you waver from that,

John Dehlin [00:35:51] they

Bruce Rognan [00:35:51] can't feel safe anyway to express that. So there needs to be, maybe that's more for the church wide thing, but for the ward leader, the bishop specifically, go on the assumption of every person there is a gold nugget. And you're not going to know where you're going to find that gold nugget. And there may be all kinds of facades and all kinds of different things, but the soul, that gold nugget inside is the prize. And go for that gold nugget inside each one of those youth, instead of just saying follow off. These 14 points in this youth booklet is if we look at the core of healing that broken heart or that heart and whatever is binding them, what's their liberty?

Bruce Rognan [00:36:41] What do they need liberty? Why are they captive? How can they get out of that captivity state? How do we let bishops to do that, to get that? The only way is just again, pure listening, listening with the heart, listening with the eyes to try to get to that gold nugget.

John Dehlin [00:37:00] So not having an end for them, but understanding who they are and developing that.

Bruce Rognan [00:37:05] Yeah, understanding who they are. I think the Church has become so mechanical in many ways that you follow the lesson manual, you follow the curriculum, and you know, I've taught high priest quorum for many years and I've taught gospel doctrine for probably another 15 years. And you know, I know what the curriculum, what it is, and you're supposed to follow that word for word. And bishops have the same thing. They've got the guides and they've got all these things to do and becomes very routine. And you do all these things and you forget the whole process is the worth of that one soul. And how do you get to that soul?

Bruce Rognan [00:37:39] It's individual, it's that one on one situation. And maybe not every kid can relate to every bishop and that's understandable, but still they can put aside the manual and focus less on administering and more on ministering to the needs of that one individual.

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