Opening: A Marriage She Never Wanted

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:00:00] I remember the proposal like it was yesterday, because I remember in my head I was screaming no. And I just said yes.

John Dehlin [00:00:08] There's this thing in Mormonism that any two Mormons can make a marriage work if they're both righteous, right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:00:14] Yes. And I definitely took that to heart. I thought, anything can be successful, so it's up to us. The most important thing on deciding who to marry was not how I felt about the person sexually, romantically. It was about, does God want me? Has he given me the sign to marry this person? I remember at that time not having those feelings for him. But I thought that was a good thing. I thought that was the sign from God. You'll be able to make it to the temple with this person.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:45] I can stay pure with this person.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:00:48] Exactly.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:49] Because I'm actually. I mean, not attracted.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:00:53] The church gives you a recipe for if things are not successful, then do abc. And the idea was that if those things aren't working, then maybe there's a problem with you. Like, I was the problem. Leaving the church gave me courage to start deciding who I was and what I wanted. And I realized when I left that I had never done that work. I want to talk a little bit about what it is to have a baby who's being born with a severe medical issue, because I think it's different than what people. You can't mother your baby the way that you want to. You know, I wasn't nursing her. I wasn't feeding her in any sort of way. I wasn't holding her. Trying to just make sure that she was feeling that connection with me so that she could be comforted was very, very stressful.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:43] Oh, I can imagine.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] There's the saying, there's no atheists in foxholes, that when you're facing death, or in this case, death of a child, that's when you're gonna be most inclined to want to cling to belief just as a coping mechanism.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:01:59] I was surprised to feel that I had no ties to the church in my heart or my mind.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:04] None.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:02:05] I actually officially wrote to resign my membership while she was in the hospital because I was like, this is it. One of the greatest lessons I've learned since leaving Mormonism is trying to find comfort and being okay with not knowing. I can hope for so many things, but I don't know, and I have to find comfort in that. How I try to approach each day is I'm going to try my best today, and I'm going to try to make today a day that was worth living for me, for My children. Then if I get it tomorrow, I'm going to do that again. And I find comfort in that, living a life that way.

Welcome and Introduction to the Episode

John Dehlin [00:02:43] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Sean Delind. It's April 15th, Tax Day 2025. Get your taxes in. And today we are going to covering a couple very important and sensitive topics. One is silencing your voice and your self knowledge in a high demand religion and figuring out how to find your voice and your self knowledge. And then also, what do you do when you lose a child within a highly religious or religious transitional context? How do you deal with grief? How do you deal with healing and growth when something happens to you? That for many is potentially the worst possible thing, which is losing a child. So that's what we're gonna be covering. I'm here with my amazing partner and co host, Margi. Hey, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:33] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] And we have with us today all the way from Austin, Texas. Yee haw. Go longhorns. Hook em horns. We have Jenny Latham Johnson. Hey, Jenny.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:03:45] Hi. Hi. Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Thanks so much for joining us.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:03:48] Yes, thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] Yeah. All right, well, Margi and I went through your outline again this morning. We're so happy to have you especially to talk about things that are so sensitive. We're also going to be talking about sexuality in a marriage purity culture and that whole sort of thing. And we just can't tell you how grateful we are that you'd come all the way from Texas, but also my home state. But also be willing to talk about some really hard stuff.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:04:19] Absolutely.

Jennie's Parents and Their Conversion Story

John Dehlin [00:04:20] All right. Well, I think it'd be fun to begin with your parents because your parents have a fun meeting and your mom conversion story, right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:04:30] Yes. I always felt unique growing up because my parents were both converts to the church. And these were very important stories for me growing up. My mom grew up in London, England. I'm very proud of that. So I feel very much half British.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:04:46] And she converted at the age of 14. She had a really troublesome childhood growing up. Her parents were alcoholics. They were very neglectful. And she'll tell you that the church absolutely saved her. So at 14 they came, missionaries came to her family. She felt like it was true and she became a member of the church.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:05:09] It's interesting to me, having learned so much now about it, the fact that she's British and she joined the church at that time. But my dad was a little bit different up in Texas. So he's a native born Texan and He grew up Church of Christ, Bible Belt, very traditional.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:05:31] And, you know, he got into kind of a wild side, I guess as he got older. He came to Austin, Texas. He went to University of Texas in the 60s and early 70s, if you know anything about that. He was pretty wild. He was a little hippie, I guess. He sold his sports car that his dad had bought him for a VW bus. He had really long hair.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:05:54] And during this time he just really lost himself. He was searching for something and he found the church. I mean, Austin, Texas, during that time was crazy. The way he explains it, honestly, he doesn't talk about it very much because he's a little traumatized from that time in his life. But it was wild. It was very much 60s, 70s, hippie area, university of Texas. The clothing that people wore was totally changing. The hairstyles were totally changing. And all around. Around Austin as very conservative. So you had this very strange kind of battle between more progressive and more conservative. And my dad definitely found himself in the middle of that. And then he found the church and he.

John Dehlin [00:06:38] Did you say he loved like Jimi Hendrix and rock music like Woodstock.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:06:42] He was like full on hippie. I didn't find this out until I was older. And I was shocked because if you knew the dad I knew growing up, you would never, never imagine.

Margi Dehlin [00:06:51] Interesting. Almost like a different self completely for that time and for him. What I'm hearing from you is he kind of conceptualizes of that time. Not like, oh, exploration, but the impact was negative. He's not thinking about it in a particularly positive way.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:07:15] Absolutely. He doesn't think about it positively at all. I think he thinks of it as traumatic. That was very palpable for us growing up. He didn't talk about. I found out all of this stuff much later, but he didn't really talk about what he was like in college or what he did or didn't do.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] He didn't want you to know that he had explored because he didn't want you exploring.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:07:40] I'm guessing that would be my assumption, yes. That's kind of what I'd have deducted. But yes, he did not want us to know the kind of life that he had led. I think he was very ashamed of it. Okay, definitely. Which is interesting because I look back at his pictures and just think he looks so cool. Like, I just think of it as very cool. But he does not think of it that way. My mom was definitely much more innocent, even though she joined the church at 14 and they had a heavy hand in her life from that Time. And so even though she had parents who were alcoholics and very much not involved in their lives, she had other people guiding her and she didn't really experience the same things as my dad.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:21] Yeah. I was gonna just say what's interesting about your parents story and the nest in which you're kind of born is what it feels like to be born into a situation where your parents feel saved by Mormonism. That's a really different thing than like, oh, we were good. And then it added some things. Or when it comes in and you feel like it saves you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:08:46] Absolutely. That you nailed it. It was very much like, we found the way, the truth, the light. We know because we've experienced what the world is, and now this is the truth. We have been saved by this.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] Some of the most hardcore orthodox Mormons and or religious people are ones that had scary developmental experiences and then feel like the church rescued them. So it sounds like we're setting you up for a bit of a strict upbringing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:09:14] Yes, absolutely. Well, and I didn't mention this, but my dad parents did struggle. They divorced and then got remarried. It was a very fraught relationship. So my dad also was coming out of a very difficult home, so he was searching for something for sure.

John Dehlin [00:09:29] Okay, so how'd they meet?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:09:31] So my dad served a mission. He hates when anyone tells this story. So my dad served a mission in London, England, and kind of unique because he ended up staying in the London area for like 75% of his mission.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:09:46] And normally they're all transferred around and he was not. So he got to know my mom really well. He will tell you very strictly they never had a romantic relationship while he was on his mission. That's very important to him. He was very much missionary, and she was Betty Henderson.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:10:00] Something about England is that there's not a lot of members out there. And so my mom, being a young girl in the church, took leadership roles very early on. She was the young women's president at 18. And so she interacted with the missionaries a lot in a leadership capacity. So even though they didn't develop feelings for each other on their mission, they knew each other very well.

John Dehlin [00:10:24] Okay, okay. So when his mission is over, your outline says he swept her away to Midland, Texas.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:10:32] He did? Yes. And I don't know if this is a good time to bring this story in, but it's the story of why my mom married my dad. Like, you know, we say, what was it about dad that made you say, yes, this is it? And she tells of this story when my dad was Leaving his mission, his mother, my grandmother, who I very much adore, she had joined the church and she came to take my dad home from his mission and do the London sightseeing thing. So they were there together. My mom saw them in the car. He kind of flagged her down, was like, hey, Sister Henderson.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:11:06] And she said she had a conversation with him and she was leaving on her bike and then just, boom, she stopped. And we would say, oh, mom, you know, what was that feeling? She goes, it wasn't romance, you know, it wasn't a flutter. It was just something.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:11:22] And she didn't know what that feeling was. And that's what made her decide that my dad was something special. And he married her and brought her to Midland, Texas.

John Dehlin [00:11:35] How old was she?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:11:37] She was when they got married.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:11:40] Pretty young.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:41] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:11:42] Not the youngest, but definitely pretty young. And she was leaving her whole world behind. I mean, leaving England at a time when you didn't have email. Right. It was difficult even to call. So her and her sisters, who were very close, her siblings were very bonded because of their parents situation. It was difficult for sure. And she went from this big city where she didn't know how to drive because you don't need to know how to drive in London. And she moved out to Midland, Texas, where you absolutely need to know how to drive.

John Dehlin [00:12:13] Is that the Permian Basin? Like oil country?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:12:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:12:16] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:12:17] Yep. My dad was a petroleum engineer, and so that's why they ended up in Midland. I don't think my mom appreciated, like, the visual change.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:27] Just flat and brown, right?

Margi Dehlin [00:12:29] Yes, flat and brown and green.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:12:32] But the number one thing that they always say is, you know, it was hard, but the people are great out there. And it's true. Have lifelong friends that they made during that time. My mom felt very accepted by them and by the church. Very loved. She's a very shy person by nature, and they really care about her. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:12:51] Trying to imagine this woman, young woman with a British accent in Texas, in Midland, Texas, in the 70s.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:58] Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:12:58] Where everybody hugs and says hello and they would point out her accent. And she was this very reserved, British shy woman.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] That must have been interesting for her.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:13:07] Definitely.

John Dehlin [00:13:08] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:09] What an act of hope and faith, really, that change. That's a big change.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:13:16] I think so, too. And I felt they felt very bonded by the church. Right. They were married in England. You can't get married in the temple until you've been married civilly. So they were married civilly in the Hyde Park Chapel, which is kind of a staple chapel if you've never been there. It's very cool. And then they were sealed in the London temple the next day. Ooh. Mm. My mom says, you know, they didn't ever really date. They didn't have time to do it. Even though they knew each other for a long period of time, it was mostly apart. And I think she was just kind of taking a step of hope. I think she felt like it was the right thing in reference to the church, in reference to those feelings that she had had, and she was hoping it would work out for the best.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:59] Yeah, I see.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] Okay, so what was their early marriage and family life like?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:14:06] You know, they had their Midland, which was before me. I'm the youngest of five. And then they moved to Austin, Texas, thank goodness, because that's where I was born. And I love being from there. And so I'm the youngest of five kids. I have an oldest sister and three brothers, so my house was wild. That's how I remember it. My brothers were wild. I don't know how we all survived, truly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:14:29] But it was an interesting household to grow up in because they're very different personalities. My dad was very, very, very strict. And even though, like y' all already said, he's a convert to the church, he did feel an obligation to be very orthodox. He wanted to follow it exactly as it should be followed. He really admired these multi generational Mormon families that had roots here in Utah and had these children that grew up and continued the church tradition, and that's what he wanted for his future. So we had.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:15:08] My mom was much more relaxed and just very there for us emotionally. We just always felt like my mom was cued in and whereas my dad would kind of go to work and come home and be more of the disciplinarian.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] So do you remember. Do you think of your Mormon upbringing as traditional? What was the Mormon vibe in your household? What were the rules, the standards? How did your parents interact with each other and with the kids?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:15:39] Yeah, I would say it was very traditional from my point of view. I mean, we went to church every Sunday. Absolutely. Like, without question. We were gonna go to church every Sunday. We had family home evening. You know, that was very important to them. We had Scripture study, and we had prayer. We couldn't watch movies on the Sabbath. We couldn't hang out with friends on the Sabbath. We couldn't do sleepovers, things like that. Sometimes they would let us watch a movie, but it was. We had, like, a shelf that were okay movies, and there were a few Disney movies, and then the 10 comm by Charlton Heston.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:16:10] I could probably quote that whole movie because I loved movies growing up. So it was very difficult on Sundays to not be able to watch movies. I felt like Sundays were very boring, you know, so definitely very traditional. We were always thinking about the church and God and what we should be doing and what we should not be doing. It was talked about often.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] And again, total children in the family?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:16:34] Five.

John Dehlin [00:16:35] Five. And you were again, the youngest of five.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:16:38] I'm the baby.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Okay. Youngest of five. All right. Okay. So your memories of being a Mormon kid.

Growing Up Mormon: Happy but Constrained

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:16:46] I mean, it's funny. Cause I just talked about how strict and uptight everything was. But I don't think my memories are honestly that bad. I had a really happy childhood. I was always a little scared of my dad because he was so strict. And he was the type of person that if you made a mistake, even if you didn't know if you made the mistake, like if you accidentally dropped something, you might get yelled at. And so we just kind of always stepped on eggshells around him. But my relationship with my mom was totally different. I just loved her. I mean, she's still my best friend.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:17:18] And I felt that from the time I was little. And she had her own struggles. My mom definitely has struggled with depression over the years, and there would be times when she kind of needed to withdraw a little bit. But my childhood was happy. I was very excited to be growing up in the church. And I felt very lucky because all that I knew was it was the correct path, it had saved my par.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:17:41] And now because it saved them and they made the correct choices, I got to benefit from it and I got to live in this religion. That was the truth. Right. That was definitely taught when I was young. It was the true church, no question.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:17:54] And I felt extremely lucky that I didn't have to do the hard work to find it. I was just born into it. Born into the covenant. Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:03] You mentioned in your outline that your dad didn't baptize you and that that seems so weird to you considering that he was so strict. And I often think about. Sometimes the strictest religious people are battling demons or trying to fight off demons. And their strictness is really a reflection of how tormented sometimes they feel inside. What do you want to share or not share about? Kind of all of that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:18:35] Yeah. Well, it was a pivotal time for me, my baptism, because I was a very good girl. I'm a people pleaser by nature. I want to take on leadership roles. I want to do the right thing. And I think growing up in the church, in a way, I thrived because I was like, oh, you told me the thing to do. I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. I really romanticized my baptism because at the time, now they do it a little bit different, but at the time, you had a personal baptism, and everybody would come, all your friends would come and watch you get dunked into the water and they would celebrate you, and you'd be wearing this beautiful dress.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:19:10] My mom had had a white dress specially made for me, so I was very, very excited. And then shortly before, they informed me that my dad wouldn't be baptizing me and that a good friend would. And I was close with this good friend. I didn't hate this idea. I didn't ask any questions because they told me that's how it was going to be. But I remember always being confused. And the baptism was private. Only our family was allowed to attend.

John Dehlin [00:19:36] Oh, yeah. In Mormon context, that means for those who have no idea, usually it's the dad that baptizes the kid. So if a dad isn't baptizing the kid, members are going to assume what?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:19:49] Oh, yeah, they're going to assume that there's some sort of major sin or issue that he's working through.

John Dehlin [00:19:55] And in the 70s or 80s, that would likely be assumed to be adultery, but it could also be in 2025, pornography or something like that, Right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:20:04] Absolutely. And I still to this day, do not know. I have never asked because I know my mom feels so uncomfortable about it, and my dad, of course, would never talk about it. But at the time, I was not cognizant of those things. But you're dead on. You wouldn't have a private baptism unless you were trying to, you know, be more private and maybe hide something. You were embarrassed by something. I remember just feeling so much sadness because I was so excited to get baptized. That's the first thing you're supposed to do. That's the first big marker you're supposed to do on your way to salvation. Right. Was baptism. I was very jazzed for that, and my friends couldn't see it. I was just very upset about it. But baptism day was fine. I think they ask you all those awkward questions afterwards, like, don't you feel wonderful? Don't you feel clean?

John Dehlin [00:20:54] Did you feel the gift of the Holy Ghost?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:20:56] Things like that. And I'm sure I said yes. Truthfully, I don't think. I think I just felt happy. Just not any different. Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:06] I was gonna ask you just for a little background with regard to your family culture as the youngest. So it sounds like you have four older siblings, and growing up in your family system, was it like, wow, there are many ways to live Mormonism. My siblings, you know, make different choices. Or there's room for personalities. Or there's room. Or what did you observe or did you observe? Kind of. There's kind of one way to be. I better be effortful in kind of showing up a certain way. Does that make sense, the variability in how Mormonism was lived in your household? Was there variability?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:21:48] That absolutely makes sense, and that's very helpful to bring up. It felt like there was one way to be. Absolutely. And it's interesting because my dad's a really strong personality, and all of us kids are really strong personalities. And a lot of my siblings were a little bit troublesome growing up, but it was made very clear to me as the youngest that that was not the correct way to be. And it was made very clear to them that's not the correct way to be. You need to be the perfect Mormon, basically. You have this path that you need to walk is very spec. You get baptized, you start going to the temple at 12. Then eventually you're endowed, and you get married in the temple, and you live a righteous life. That's the way. And that was what it was expected. So there was no room for different beliefs, ideals, or personalities.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:39] Yeah. Okay.

Eternal Families and Mormon Devotion

John Dehlin [00:22:41] You mentioned in your outline that the Mormon teaching around eternal families was really central to your family's devotion to the church. And that comes into play later is marriages struggle in your family context. Do you want to talk about that teaching and its impact on your family at all?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:22:58] Yes. Well, there's really two big, pivotal stories. The first one is my grandmother. My grandmother is very special to me. She's the only grandparent I knew, and I always knew her as, like, a very old lady. I'm actually mesmerized by people who have young grandmothers because My grandmother was 78 when I was born.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:23:18] I know by the time I knew her, she was in her 80s, really. And I knew that she was a convert to the church, and I didn't really know why, but a big reason for her was her son Fletcher. So my grandmother had three boys. My dad's the youngest, and he had a brother named Fletcher. And When Fletcher was 15, unfortunately, he passed away from a motorcycle accident.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:23:42] And it was really, really tragic. I mean, it was something talked about in our family growing up often. And my grandmother very much struggled With Fletcher's. I mean, never could get over it. I think my dad, as a younger sibling, felt a little bit abandoned by her emotionally because she just had to withdraw.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:24:00] And so when she converted to the church, this whole idea of families can be together forever was essential for her. I mean, maybe even life saving, because she felt like she could be with her son again. The thing that I find interesting about that is that she actually had a very difficult time becoming endowed because she was a single woman for a long time because my grandpa had passed, and the church kind of gave her a difficult time with getting endowed. They had a lot of rules about who could be endowed, why, and when. And she got turned away from the temple when she went for her endowment once because of just being a single woman.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:24:44] And it was important for her to be endowed and to be sealed to my grandfather so that she could be sealed to her children.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:51] So that would have been your dad's brother who passed away.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] So for your dad, too, staying faithful was a way to see his brother who had passed away.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:25:00] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:25:01] Interesting.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:01] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:25:02] He doesn't talk about it a lot, but definitely. And then the other side of it was, I told you of that moment that my mom had had when she met my dad or when he was leaving, and she said she had this aha moment, but she didn't know what it meant.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:25:18] Well, my mom came to Texas, of course, and while she was in Texas, she got really excited about genealogy, as many Mormons do, and she just started feverishly searching her own genealogy. And we have this family Bible. And in this family Bible, one of our ancestors from the late 1800s, they had a baby, and the baby was marked as being born in Texas.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:25:42] And my mom was like, what is this? You know, she called her sisters. Her sisters are like, I don't understand. Because the public records for this baby say that this baby is born in England. So my mom started researching, which, you know, was so hard back then. This was in the 80s, so we did not have the Internet.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] It was micro fish.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:25:59] Exactly. And she would go to cemeteries. That's what my mom and her sisters would do. They would go to cemeteries, and they would take grave rubbings. I have a joke with my English cousins. Anytime I'd go visit England, we would always be walking around cemeteries like, that's my memory of England. And English cemeteries are gorgeous, so I find them very peaceful. But they would do grave rubbings, her and her sisters, and they would find the public records that were kept there at the church and at the cemetery.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:26:27] So she really dug into this family. And then she found out that this man, William Cope, did bring his family. William and Christina brought their family to Texas in the late 1800s, when Texas was still frontier. And they came to Texas with all of their children, and they were here for a good while. There were babies that were born here. And then William got very sick and Christina decided, well, we better go back to England, because they don't have medical care here in Texas. So they go back to England, William dies, and then the whole rest of her life, Christina stays in England and she raises her children and she says over and over, I never should have lived left Texas.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:27:10] It was great there. And one of her kids decided to be the adventurer and he came back to Texas and he ended up having a whole line of children here in Texas that nobody knew anything about until my mom was here, Boots on the ground. And she discovered it.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] Literal boots on the ground?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:27:27] Literal boots on the ground, yeah. Although, let's be honest, she wasn't wearing boots because she's still very British. But yeah, she hunted down this family, the Runnels, and she found this woman named Lillian Runnels, who lives in this. It's still a tiny, know nothing town in Texas. And Lillian had this treasure trove of genealogy. It's really amazing. She had letters from these family members back to their family in England and just all of these records. So my mom was able to discover all of these people, all these individuals, and do their temple work, and it was at that moment, meaning she would

John Dehlin [00:28:05] be baptized for those who had deceased in the temple.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:28:09] Yes. So the importance of doing genealogy when you're Mormon is to be able to do their temple work because you believe it's your responsibility to do those ordinances for them. Because obviously in Mormonism, you can't get to the highest level of the celestial kingdom without those ordinances being done. So it's a great act of service. And you feel this burden, this expectation to do genealogy. My mom felt that. And after she got these records, actually, the records that Lillian had were burned in a fire on accident. So my mom has the only surviving pictures, letters, records from those people.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:28:45] And she will say it was in that moment that everything came full circle. So if we're remembering back to when she had that aha moment with my dad, that's when she said, this is it the reason I married your dad. That feeling that I had was what we call the spirit of Elijah. This was such an important theme in my family growing up. It was the spirit of Elijah telling me to marry your dad so that I could connect these ancestors and do their ordinances for them.

John Dehlin [00:29:14] Yeah. And Joseph Smith was all about making sure that everyone could get back to heaven as a united family.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:29:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:29:21] And that's where the proxy work for the dead teachings come from.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:29:26] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:29:27] Yeah. Let's jump to your aspiring theater kid, actress self and Once Upon a Mattress.

Performance, Obedience, and Mormon Adolescence

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:29:38] Okay. So growing up, I loved performance. So, so, so, so much. But I was a very good girl. Like, I followed everything in Mormonism to

John Dehlin [00:29:48] the T. We Mormons, I was a good boy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:29:50] You know, we just mean.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:53] Because I do think. And you've done a bit of that, right? It's very people pleasing. Because ultimately, children are children, right? This good and bad thing.

John Dehlin [00:30:03] Margi Hayes, good girl.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:05] But in Mormonism, that means people pleasing. What else would you say when you say good girl? Defining yourself, what do you mean people pleasing?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:30:13] Submissive, definitely. Obedience. You followed the church to a T. So I remember at the age of eight, I started trying to read my scriptures every day. That's a great example. Especially since I had been baptized, I didn't want to make mistakes after that. It was very important for me not to make mistakes. And so as I started getting older, this became very difficult because I was passionate about the church, but I was really, really passionate about, like, it was my heart and soul. I wanted to be a famous actress when I grew up. And performance was everything. It's what got me through. I feel like, my adolescent years. And when I was 12, I auditioned for a play called Once Upon a Mattress. It's a really fun little play. And I got the lead, which was crazy.

John Dehlin [00:30:54] Was it Princess and the Pea?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:30:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:56] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:30:57] Yeah, that's exactly it. Carol Burnett was in the original stage performance. It's so funny. And I got the main part of Larkin. The problem was. And I was really excited. My mom was excited, too, because a lot of other kids had tried out. Most of them were older than me, and I got it, so I was very excited. But then we find out that the main character became pregnant out of wedlock. Her story is that she's pregnant out of wedlock and can't get married until the prince gets married. And then it's all about finding the prince a princess, which is where the princess and the peak comes in.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:31:29] And so it's essential to the story that she be pregnant out of wedlock. It moves the story along. That's how I thought of it as a young girl. I thought of it as fun as, you know, it makes sense for the story. I definitely Wanted to take the role. My mom was very bothered by it, understandably. So, you know, I don't blame her for being bothered by it. Her and I have talked a lot about it since she brought it to me and basically said, you know, Jenny, do you feel like you should be doing this role? And I knew what she wanted me to say.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:31:57] You know, she wanted me to say, no, I don't feel like I should be doing this role. But I said, yes, of course I want to do this role, you know, absolutely. I'd be crazy to turn it down.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:32:04] And she kept on talking me through it and then she kind of hit me with the hard hitter, which is, if Jesus was in the room watching you do this play, would you be comfortable performing it? And I just knew I have to say no. The truth is, I don't think I cared one way or the other. I don't think I thought too much about it. But I said, no, I don't think I'd be comfortable doing that. And I did, did turn down the role.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:32] You did.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:32:33] How old were you?

Margi Dehlin [00:32:34] I was 12. So you were 12.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] And a Mormon parent is going to process that. Like, look, she used her free agency and she totally chose the right.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:44] It reminds me of parents also saying, have you prayed about it? And it makes like a parent feel like there's this choice involved where in actuality what the child is hearing is like. Like, oh, it's a no.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:32:58] Exactly, exactly. Or a lot of parents do this with baptism. They say, I'm so proud of my child for choosing to be baptized, you know, as if an 8 year old can make a really responsible decision. And of course they're going to choose because that's what expected of them. What that moment. The reason I brought it up in my outline, it was very important because it taught me a few things. It taught me that I got rewarded for doing what other people wanted me to do. It reinforced that.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:22] That.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:33:22] And it also taught me that what I wanted was not important. What I wanted was what we call. Here we go. Second Nephi, the natural man, you know, and the natural man is an enemy to God. So what I wanted was against what God wanted. God wanted me to do what he wanted. He did not want me to do what I wanted. And I didn't even think of that as a bad thing at the time. I just thought that my natural desires were evil and I needed to spend the rest of my life eradicating that evilness.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:54] Mmm, that is so big. That is so big. Because what that actually means is And I've talked about this a little bit before, but to a child or to a young girl, it's basically don't trust yourself. It's basically like what you feel, and that's a very existential crisis, by the way, that what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, what you desire, right. What you yearn for, all of that is not to be trusted. Your experience is just not to be trusted.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:34:28] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:28] So powerful.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:34:30] I agree with you. And that's kind of what I've just dissected in adulthood. Of course, at the time I was not cognizant of that. I got in this very strange habit of when I prayed, I would like hide from God what I actually wanted. I would not ask because, you know, you're supposed to pray and express your gratitude and things like that, but then you're supposed to talk about things that you desire. And I would only talk about wanting churchy things. You know, like I want to be more righteous or I want to find a righteous husband or I want to make it to the temple. I wouldn't ask God for what I really wanted because I felt as soon as I voiced it would be the moment I would not get it. And I wanted it really bad. And so I just kept it very much inside, very deep, deep, deep inside.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] And my heart broke for 12 year old Jenny reading your outline because you wrote, I learned that what I wanted was wrong, that I couldn't trust my own thoughts and desires and that I needed to learn to sacrifice for God.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:35:36] Absolutely. And if I had one theme for my spiritual development in adolescence, it would be that, that all those things were reinforced. And I don't think I'm alone in that. You know, I mean, it's unique to me, of course, but I know so many other people who have also experienced that. So when I think about it with my parents, like it would be easy for me to say, you know, and people have said this to me since I've left the church. They've said, well, maybe you just had, it was your parents. And I fight back with that. And I'm like, you know, I think my parents were trying to do what they thought they should be doing. It was everything that they were being taught that they should do for their kids.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:13] And I think that's why Mormonism is so multi layered, is because it's not just Sundays at church. It's not just like when you're in the building, it's that the family system supports and shows up in much the same way, you know, when they're all in. And when they're, you know, the structure is actually created to reinforce the church system. When you're not at church, does that make sense? So you are living and breathing it oftentimes 24, 7.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:36:43] Absolutely. There's no breaks. I mean, it is your life. It's all consuming, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:36:49] As I think about the way high demand religions work and also how your parents were probably processing all of this, I'm sure that in their mind their goal was to prevent their children from, you know, drinking, taking drugs or having sex. Like that was probably the whole banana for them. And in a sense, there can be good things that come out of that because it can help keep a kid safe. But the cost or the price can be a kid just learning to tune out what's inside and what they care about and what they want. So talk about your Mormon adolescence in that context if you want.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:37:37] Yeah, well, you hit the nail on the head. Well, and it's interesting because all my siblings are a little bit different and some of them really kind of went crazy. And me being the youngest, viewing some of the choices they made, seeing how disappointed my parents were in those choices, I was not going to make those same mistakes. Like, absolutely not. And it was so important, my parents, as you said, it was palpable for my dad growing up that we not make those mistakes. I think one of the things I talked about, and I think it's important to talk about, is my dad was really strict with media content and he would not let me watch Disney Channel original movies because they were like too teenage themed.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:38:17] There were always 13 year olds dating 13 year olds and things like that. And he did not want us thinking that was okay. So those were not allowed in our house. But at the same time, he let us watch Braveheart. You know, I mean, it was a very weird standard. So as a girl, especially kind of how he treated my brothers was a little bit different. But as a girl, I felt this extreme pressure to stay pure and to not indulge in any sort of. Yeah. Intuition or any sort of thoughts that would have been developing at that time.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:38:54] One of the things also about me growing up was they were very strict about dating. So a lot of Mormons are not actually as strict about dating. Like at 14 you can start going to dances, but at 14 I could only go to church dances. My parents wouldn't let me go to school dances. I could never go to school dance until I went to prom and I had to really beg to go to prom. And I had to go with a large group of people. And then most Mormons also start dating at 16. My parents said that what the church meant by dating was going out in groups of mixed gendered.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:39:27] So I actually wasn't allowed to date at all until I left for college. And it just instilled in me this pressure that my parents were very anxious about me being pure so that I could find a righteous priesthood holder and marry that man when I got older.

John Dehlin [00:39:46] Okay, you write in your outline. Finish the sentences. Immodesty was like unto what pornography? And losing your virginity was like unto murder. And you're not exaggerating.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:39:58] No. And I felt, I mean, that's exactly how I felt about it as a young girl. That was not just enforced by my parents. I've been talking about them a lot, but absolutely enforced by the church. I remember all, I mean, all of the young women's lessons. The licked cupcake. I mean, I got that lesson that

John Dehlin [00:40:13] if you experimented sexually, then.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:17] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:18] That nobody would want you because you

John Dehlin [00:40:19] would be like a licked cupcake.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:21] Yeah. You'd be dirty.

John Dehlin [00:40:22] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:23] Sinful, bad, unrighteous.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:25] And they don't oftentimes just tell that story like a licked cupcake. They'll bring in a cupcake and lick it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:32] They will lick it.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:33] Yeah. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:40:33] It's an object. Did we call that an object lesson?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:35] An object lesson, yes, absolutely.

Purity Culture, Modesty, and Shame

John Dehlin [00:40:39] And that, chaps, there's also chewed gum. Who wants to eat gum that's already been chewed? And that's a woman's virtue. Strangely, the boys don't have that lesson.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:40:48] No, they really. And it's very frustrating. And then the modesty thing, I mean, oh, for the girls all the time. And there was no mincing of words when I was younger. I've thought back this a lot and talked to a lot of people in my youth group and been like, these lessons were taught to us, right. And the lessons were, you know, don't dress immodestly because you will be a temptation for these boys. You know, you are doing them a disservice. You're walking pornography. And so your body is a weapon. You know, if they see it, they just won't be able to control themselves. And really that's on you for dressing immodestly. You should have known better. So help these boys out and dress

John Dehlin [00:41:25] modestly, which probably has implications for sexuality later. Right. If you feel like your body's dangerous, it needs to be covered and protected and, you know, held with terror, basically for the implications of what might happen.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:41:40] Yes, absolutely. And I definitely Saw that play into a lot of insecurities that I had. I just never had a chance to find a way to be comfortable in my own body. I developed a lot of insecurities in my adolescent years. Young Jenny was very outgoing, she could take on the world. Very courageous. And then teenage Jenny became very withdrawn, very self conscious. I just was always worried about how I looked, how I was presenting myself, and I was thinking about it 24 7. I was very also worried about my righteousness and my spirituality.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:42:13] I read my scriptures a lot, I mean, daily. And if I skipped a day, then I would double up the next day. Sometimes I would skip a week because I was on vacation. And then I would double up throughout that next week. And I really felt it in my mind, like, if I don't do this, something bad is going to happen to me. Like, I am not fulfilling what I need to be fulfilling.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:31] I have a question just around your inner self, what you remember about your inner self at that time. So do you feel like what you did on the inside, like, did you feel sometimes attraction to people still? And was that something that you hid, like you still experienced it but you hid it, or was it more like you dissociated, like you actually cut off and didn't even have that experience because it was. So how would you describe on the inside how you experienced, you know, attraction, developmentally appropriate feelings towards.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:43:15] Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I remember when I started having those feelings and I quashed them pretty quickly. But then when I was 17, I fell in love with my first boyfriend, like my first real love. And it's the first time I did really feel that. And I knew immediately, like, this is bad news. And I knew I could never tell my parents and I never did. And I hid the fact that I was dating him. And you know, I was so in love with him, like as only a 17 year old girl can be. He really was everything.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:43:46] And I definitely felt attracted to him. And we, you know, did some things. We never had sex, but we definitely crossed the Mormon line. It was more than kissing. And I felt so much guilt every time we did that, even though I wanted to do it. I remember we would like make out and then I would come home and read my scriptures and then I would usually message him, trying to convert him to the church.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:44:10] This poor boy, he was not a member of the church. That's also very important because that was a big, big no, no. I knew that I had to marry a member of the church and I had to date a member of the church as well. I had had siblings who had dated people who are not Mormon. And those people were basically not even welcomed into our home, unfortunately. And I did not want my parents to know about him at all. So I hid it until my dad found out about it. And then everything blew up. He got very, very mad.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:44:41] He totally chewed out this guy. And of course this boy broke up with me and just shattered my heart. And for me it was a confirmation, like what you were saying, you know, I had hid those feelings from my parents. I still wanted to feel those feelings. I was still cognizant of it, but I was hiding it. And then that encouraged me to retreat those feelings further because I felt like how everything exploded with my dad and then this boy breaking up with me and breaking my heart was all my fault. It was my fault because I had indulged in this natural man Again, you

Margi Dehlin [00:45:13] had dared to want something for yourself.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:45:15] Mm, yeah. And like I said before, I showed God that I wanted it right. And it was definitely taken away from me in a big way. I got very sad. I remember my mom was really great in this time because she knew I was really depressed and she recognized that I had really gone into a full on depression. And she took me to a doctor and we got to talk things through a little bit. I started exercising and doing some more like healthy things to kind of help pop myself out of this. But I got very, very depressed and I visited with my bishop. Of course I wanted to see my bishop and my parents wanted me to see my bishop and I visited my bishop because this is what you do if you make a mistake in Mormonism.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:45:56] You don't just repent silently. I mean, if you make a big mistake, you have to go to your bishop. That's how it was taught to me. Like, there are some sins that you just can't undo yourself. So I went to my bishop. Thankfully, I had a really, I think, a positive experience with him. He was a very kind man. He didn't ask me any inappropriate questions, which happened to some of my friends.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:46:17] He just helped me sort through this sin that I had made with my ex boyfriend. And he put me kind of on the path to righteousness. He did take away the. I had to not take the sacrament for a whole month.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:46:33] And that was devastating because it's socially embarrassing. But more than that, because my natural desire was to do the right thing. Not being able to take the sacrament was really devastating just for me personally. He gave me a whole scripture outline to read from the Book of Mormon. And I did, I read it, I studied it, I met back with him and then after a month I was able to take the sacrament again. And you know, I promised myself I'd never do it again.

John Dehlin [00:47:03] From the church's perspective, you know, they would say to members that this is the worst, close to the worst thing that could ever happen to you. From the church's self interest perspective, this is the best thing that could ever happen to a member, I believe, because it basically teaches you to stay on the straight and narrow and to obey your leaders and to do what the church says. Repercussions are so severe. So in some sense you become theirs at this point.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:47:36] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:47:38] And the flip to that is you're no longer yours. And that's where our viewers and listeners will have to forgive. We're going to be bringing up the severance metaphor probably quite a bit over the next few weeks and months. But have you seen Severance?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:47:50] I love severance. This is great. You're innie and you're outy.

John Dehlin [00:47:53] So this is where your Audi gentleman says I need an innie Jenny because the outie Jenny isn't behaving correctly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:48:01] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:48:01] And this is where your, any inner Jenny just really develops at this point in your.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:48:06] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:48:07] You know, you kind of started innie Jenny started developing during the Princess and the Pea. But really when you go through this repentance process and you've now committed, almost committed the sin extra murder, that's when Inni Jenny starts thriving. Right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:48:22] For sure. And I recommitted myself. So the whole goal, when you're woken in the church, at least when I was growing up, the whole goal is to be married in the temple to a righteous priesthood holder. That is it.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:33] That's the whole point of young women's right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:48:36] Absolutely. And you know, of course there's other things tied into it. They want to teach you to be a good person and other things. They want to teach you how to serve and to be a leader and that. But they really drive home the whole righteous priesthood leader. I knew I was not. I knew that that's the path that I wanted and this really solidified that for me. Like even when I was dating this boy, I remember thinking I could never marry him. Like he would have to become a member of the church or I'm going to eventually have to find somebody else. And then like you said, going through that repentance process kind of like drove it home. No, I'm recommitted to the path.

John Dehlin [00:49:14] Yeah. And you mentioned Your outline. You learned that you need a Mormon man to tell you the pathway, not your own inner voice, because your inner voice gets you into trouble and has unrighteous desires.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:49:26] Yes, that was solidified a few times. There was this incident. It's not a bad incident, but when I was 14, I knew I could get my patriarchal blessing if I wanted. But I was very, very stressed out. I wanted to know that God wanted me to get the blessing. That was important for me. I needed to know if it was the right thing to do. I didn't want to just be trendy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:49:44] And I prayed for it, I kid you not. For a year, one year, every night. God, do you want me to get my patriarchal blessing? And nothing. I mean, silence, crickets, right? So I just kept praying, praying, praying. And then this one day, dad wanted to give me a father's blessing, which I hated getting father's blessings. But for some reason, I said, yes, okay, that's fine. And he gave me a blessing. And in the blessing, he said, jenny, the Lord wants you to get your patriarchal blessing. And I was shocked. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's my answer. And it's like what you were saying, it kind of laid this pathway of I don't get the answers other people get the answers for.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:50:24] Priesthood men get the answers for me. My dad, who I didn't have necessarily a close relationship with, he got the answer for me because he was holding the priesthood.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:33] Mm. I get it. I wonder if we should explain what a patriarchal blessing is just really quickly. Yeah.

Patriarchal Blessings and Inner Conflict

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:50:39] So a patriarchal blessing is something that you can get when you're 14, but you have to get it by a patriarch, which is a special calling. It's a. It's really prestigious calling in the church. It's a special calling given to a man. Of course, only a man can have it. Cause you have to hold the page priesthood. And they give you this very special blessing. In it, they tell you which house you are in of the tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel.

John Dehlin [00:51:01] And your spiritual lineage.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:51:03] Yes, your spiritual lineage. Thank you. But they also. It's almost like. This is a terrible way to put it. Mormons would be so offended, but it's like fortune telling almost. They're telling you a little bit about your future, like what you're going to see and expect in your future, what it is about you that's special, what you're going to achieve. So it's a thing.

John Dehlin [00:51:21] It's supposed to be Heavenly Father's words. And that's why it's such a sacred calling because you're channeling, you're allegedly channeling, not some mystic force. It's God's words for you. Right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:51:35] It's God's words for you. And also the patriarchal blessing is supposed to be, it's very sacred. It's supposed to be kept secret. My parents were in attendance with mine, but you're not supposed to read it to anybody. You're not supposed to share it with anybody. You get an official copy from the church. I had mine laminated and I kept it in my scriptures and I reread it often. And that was also encouraged. The church encourages that all the time. You know, a lot of times when you're struggling spiritually, they'll say, well, have you read your patriarchal blessing lately? Because basically all patriarchal blessings are going to confirm what the church wants you to do, the path that the church wants you to do.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:52:08] Mine definitely confirmed that. You know, it did tell me things specific to myself I felt at the time, but it also confirmed that I was going to find a righteous priesthood holder and marry in the temple and I was going to be a mother. And then yes, it told me my spiritual lineage and kind of what I should do with that and things like that.

John Dehlin [00:52:28] And I joke, but Mormon patriarchal blessings literally never say you're going to become a successful career businesswoman, never get married and never have kids and leave the church and thrive as a self actuated feminist.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:52:41] Yeah, I mean, absolutely not. And if they would have at that time, I would have been horrified. I'd been like, what are they talking about? You know, I remember, what's funny is I remember getting, getting my official patriarchal blessing back from the church. And they spelled my name J E N N Y. I spell my name J E N N I E because my real name is Janice. So we've always spelled Jenny J E N N I E. And I was really bothered, I was very bothered as a 14, 15 year old girl at this time because what you said, I truly felt these were God's words. I felt like he saw me, he was talking exactly to me. He knew my life exactly. God would definitely know that I spelled my name with an ie and there it was on paper with a Y. And it did bother me for a

John Dehlin [00:53:25] long time, which in the end is just way too much power. Right. For anyone to have. Because oftentimes they'll promise that you'll get married but you don't. Or they promise you'll serve a mission but you won't. Or that you'll become an apostle, but you don't. And then these Mormons are left just hearts broken. Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Why did my partner die without us having kids? Or why did my kids die? And I never had kids, but my patriarchal blessing said I would raise my kids. Like, it's just. It's disasters waiting to happen for many, not for all, but for many for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:54:00] And there's this line at the end of mine, I don't know if other people have it, where it says something like. But almost. This is almost a direct quote. Like, all these things are contingent upon your righteousness. So in the end, it's your fault.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:15] Fault for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:54:17] If it doesn't work out, it is your fault.

John Dehlin [00:54:19] So that's. And we call that blame reversal. In kind of high demand religion or cult awareness, house always wins. If the good things happen, then the church gets all the credit. If bad things happen, you did it wrong.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:54:35] Yeah, absolutely.

Deciding to Get Married Young

John Dehlin [00:54:37] And speaking of doing it wrong, let's talk about your decision to get married and how that went.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:54:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:54:44] Sorry, no offense meant by that, but it's only because I read your outline.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:54:48] Yes. No, it's true. So it's interesting talking about my marriage, and I'm gonna step through this as gracefully as I can because I married a man named David, and he's an amazing person. He's an amazing human. And this whole time that I'm gonna talk about this marriage story, I don't want to diminish that. I grew up with David. We've known each other since we were five, and he is a wonderful person. Like I said, we became best friends in high school, and he was my best friend. Friend. And I mean, he was my friend. Capital F, R, I, E, N, D. Right. I didn't have those feelings for him. When I got into college, even though I was going to school, I went to byu.

John Dehlin [00:55:29] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:55:29] Yeah. And byu, Idaho is very strict. And honestly, I had a great time at that time. I had a great time. I definitely was there for school. But dating was in the forefront, as it is for everybody. And it's drilled into you. That's what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be dating and looking for marriage. And so I was kind of experimenting and dating with all these guys. And David also went to byu, Idaho, and we were still best friends. And then he left on his mission to Brazil and we continued to write letters. And the whole time I remember thinking, just feeling friendship for him.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:56:01] I actually had a couple of relationships While he was gone, one which was very serious. And then all of those ended and kind of blew up in my face. So I felt very lost as to what I was supposed to feel in order to get married. Like, what am I supposed to feel for the person to know that I should marry them? And the number one thing that kept coming back to me is, like, God will make it clear to you. So in my mind, the most important thing on deciding who to marry was not how I felt about the person sexually. It wasn't about how I felt about them romantically.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:56:38] It was about, does God want me? Has he given me the sign to marry this person that was number one? Like he gave your mom exactly parallel? Very much so. And also, you know, is this person a righteous priesthood holder? So David came back from his mission kind of at the perfect time where I was just really searching, and we started hanging out again, and we started dating. And I remember at that time not having those feelings for him that you'd

John Dehlin [00:57:12] had for that boyfriend in high school.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:57:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:57:13] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:57:14] Yes. I knew it. But I thought that was a good thing. I thought that was the sign from God. And I know this sounds crazy to people who are not in it, but it made perfect sense to me at the time. I thought really it was God's sign because God was basically like, you'll be able to make it to the temple with this person. Because with all my other boyfriends, I was always nervous we would mess up so badly, like we would have. And so we wouldn't. We didn't have sex, but if we would have that, we would not be able to make it to the temple. And so anytime I started having very strong feelings for a boy I was dating, we broke up.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:50] It's almost like, oh, I can stay pure with this person.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:57:55] Exactly.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:56] Because I'm actually. I mean, not attracted.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:57:59] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:00] And.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:58:01] And that was definitely it. And David felt the opposite. We've talked about this a lot in recent years because I'm like, would you ever have married me if you hadn't have felt those feelings? He's like, no. And I'm like, that's the privilege, you know, of a man, you know, in the church. Whereas I didn't feel afforded that same privilege.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:58:16] What was important to me was that he was a righteous priesthood holder. He was also a very safe space for me. He is a wonderful person. He was a wonderful friend. I felt extremely safe with him. I felt like I could talk to him about anything. But those feelings were not there. And we only dated. We only dated for Six weeks before he proposed. I even remember a week before he proposed, I said, I think we should break up and date other people. I think that would be a good idea. I do not want to get married. And then a week later he proposed.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:58:47] I remember the proposal like it was yesterday because I remember in my head I was screaming no. And I just said yes. And I still to this day don't understand it.

John Dehlin [00:58:58] Well, that's Innie versus Audi Jenny, right? Audi Jenny was screaming no at Inny Jenny. But any Jenny is following the plan.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:59:08] I was, I was following the plan and I said yes. And we only had a six week engagement before we got married because we wanted to fit it in. We wanted to fit it in before we went back to school. So many people do this. It's so sad.

John Dehlin [00:59:20] And he'd been home how long from his mission?

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:59:21] Oh, three months.

John Dehlin [00:59:22] Yeah, it's crazy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:59:24] And about David, I remember him talking and this happens to a lot of guys when they're on their mission. They're, they, they really revere their mission presidents for the most. Like, if you've had a pretty good experience on your mission, you really love your mission president and you take their advice very strongly because they are the authoritative priesthood holder. It's like they're speaking for God. And you know, the mission president said, go home and get married. And David took that very seriously. And he felt like that was his path and his plan. He was going to go home, he was going to get an education, get married.

John Dehlin [00:59:58] So we did.

Jennie Latham Johnson [00:59:58] So we did. We got married three months and. And then in every day of our engagement. My poor mother and poor David, because I cried every single day of our engagement. And I think both of them had no idea what was going on. And they were both desperate to try to help me. My mom sat me down about two weeks before the wedding. It was right before I got endowed. And she said, you don't have to do this. And I was like, mom, all the invitations have been sent, set. The temple date is set. I have to do this. This is what God wants me to do.

John Dehlin [01:00:33] You would learn to snuff out your inner voice. That your inner voice was wicked.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:00:38] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:38] And you sacrifice for God. You sacrifice.

John Dehlin [01:00:42] You put yourself on the altar.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:00:44] I did. And now it's interesting, I've said this to David a few times recently. And I said, you know, I got married to you. And in many ways I was very lucky to do that at that time because I was gonna get married to somebody at that time. That was, that was the goal. It was gonna happen. And if it had to happen at that time, I just think honestly at a young age. I thought I was old at the time because I was 21. So many of my friends had gotten married at 19 or 20. I was 21, but that was so young. I don't think it was just a good time for me in general to get married. But if I had to get married to anyone at that age, I'm glad it was a safe space. Like David.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:23] That's right, that's right, that's right. Strong friendship.

John Dehlin [01:01:26] Yeah. And I'm glad he's a good guy because the important part of this story to me is you learning through the church to silence your inner voice and the fact that you became your own self sacrifice. And if he had been a bad husband, that would all get muddled and confused in the story. But the truth is, he was a good guy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:01:50] Yes, absolutely. And he was my biggest cheerleader. And you know, he grew up in the church as well and had his own innie outie like you were talking about and dissecting those own things as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:00] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:02:02] So what's it like being married to a man you don't. Aren't really super into?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:02:06] Yeah, you know, our marriage was very hard.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] We, you know, there's this, there's this thing in Mormonism that I think Spencer B. Kimball said that any Mormons can make a marriage work if they're both righteous.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:21] Right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:02:21] Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up because I cannot tell you how many BYU Idaho devotionals I went to, which BYU Idaho devotionals are a big deal and you're more righteous if you go. And of course, I went to them every Tuesday and they talked about marriage a lot and they would say that often they would say the most important thing to a successful marriage is marrying in the temple to two righteous people. A righteous priesthood holder and a righteous woman.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:02:47] Yeah. And I definitely took that to heart. I thought anything can be successful, so it's up to us to make it happen. We made the dream come true. We were both made it to the temple. We got married in the San Antonio Temple on August 29, the worst date ever. If you are from Texas, you know, August 29th is a terrible day to get married. It is so hot. It was 109 degrees that day, so we were pouring sweat, taking our pictures. And I don't look back on that. Our wedding anniversary is a day I always really struggle with because when I look back to my wedding day, it just doesn't feel like anything. Was me. It doesn't have me in it. It's not the date I wanted. It's not the place I wanted.

The Temple Endowment and an Unhappy Marriage

John Dehlin [01:03:29] Was the endowment positive for you?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:03:32] Oh, no. Oh, this is so good. No, I was traumatized by the endowment and I was really ashamed how traumatized I was by the endowment because I knew I was supposed to feel spiritual about it. The reason was, is because I didn't know about all of the symbolic clothing right before I got into it.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] For those who don't know, this is the temple ceremony that you go through as an adult in the Mormon Temple. Sorry, keep going.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:03:55] No, it's so important to explain. And I know I have lots of friends listening who have never been Mormon and don't know. So the temple is not something you can just walk in. You have to have a special recommend to get in, and you have to be able to answer all the right questions to get that recommend, which means I needed to be pure. For instance, I could not have had sex and I needed to be cleared by my bishop to be able.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] No coffee, no tea, no alcohol, paying your tithing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:04:20] Of course, you have to be a full tithe payer. And so I had that special card and was able to go do what they call the endowment, which is a very strange ceremony that is difficult to describe, honestly. But in that ceremony you wear symbolic clothing. So before, before this endowment, all I knew about the temple was that you wear a basic white temple dress. I had seen many women wear this dress. It's actually very. They're very pretty, most of them. I really liked my temple dress. I always felt very pretty in it. What I was not aware of was that in the endowment ceremony, you also place a lot of other symbolic clothing on you and it's very awkward.

John Dehlin [01:04:57] A green apron, a veil.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:59] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:00] Robes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:05:01] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:02] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:05:02] And the boys wear the weirdest hat called meter. And the girls wear these veils that I wish they were pretty, but they're not pretty. And they never stay on right. And your hair never looks good. Like. And my mom had showed me this clothing.

John Dehlin [01:05:14] It's definitely the most culty part of Mormonism is the Mormon Temple ceremony for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:05:19] And when I explain this ceremony to people who have never been Mormon, they go, and you didn't think you were in a cult. And I'm like, you have to understand that when you are in it, I mean, you would have no idea that this was weird. Like, you feel that it's strange, but you also know in your heart that's what you should be doing.

John Dehlin [01:05:39] And all your loved Ones are surrounding you smiling like it's their proudest moment.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:05:44] Yeah, it is their proudest moment. Absolutely. My mom, thankfully the night before I was endowed, she showed me. She said, I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm gonna show you what you're gonna do. Because she knows me and she knows I was freaking out. And she showed me all the clothing and I was just like, whoa. So we go through this endowment and I'm wearing all this symbolic clothing. I. I felt so uncomfortable the whole time. I hated the fact that David was there seeing me look like that. I didn't feel pretty. I didn't feel cute. You want to feel cute around your fiance? His parents were there. I hated that they were there seeing me looking awkward and not feeling comfortable. And then of course, after the endowment, I learned that I was going to have to wear all that really ugly symbolic clothing on my wedding day. And that was really devastating.

John Dehlin [01:06:39] Now, some would say that's superficial. Why does it matter what you look like? But then again, we have the whole bridal industry, like, what bride doesn't want to look the way they want to look on their wedding? So, I mean, I hear that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:06:51] No, for sure. And I remember growing up and when I was preparing for my wedding, actually that conversation was brought up. You know, it was important to my parents that we not be superficial for emotional. It wasn't about the glam, it was about the sacredness of the ceremony. But my personality is very different. Like, I'm a very girly girl and I've always loved dressing up. Like, I loved performance. Right. Anytime I got to perform a role and be something very fancy, I was always very excited. So of course I had romanticized how I was gonna look on my wedding. And when I learned that I was not only not going to look how I wanted to look, I'm my wedding. In fact, I was going to look exactly the opposite. Like I was going to feel ugly on my wedding.

John Dehlin [01:07:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:39] I feel like too, sometimes the things that come up, the way we talk about it can seem like if we're going to judge them though, I don't think we should as, as being more appearance. But honestly, there are deep rooted things like the fact that you don't actually know that you're gonna wear all that stuff. And then by the time you are aware, you can't really back out. Like, structurally, there are a lot of controls in place to make that very uncomfortable to do. I think also there's this aspect too. You're looking in mirrors at One point. And I think also there's this piece of like, who doesn't invitation moments that matter and the way you know what it's gonna feel like, what it's gonna look like and when you're not prepared.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:30] I do think I remember having the same feeling looking in the mirror of like, how is that me? This is a person I actually do not recognize right now. And that's a very scary, disorienting feeling on a day that feels so impactful. Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:08:49] Yeah, you nailed it. You nailed it. Exactly. You don't feel like you. And I did. I. I felt ugly and. And it's important to understand that as far as my heart goes in reference to the church, I was in it like I was a full believer. So I felt like I was there for the right reasons. In my heart I'm like, I am here to do the sacred covenant that's going to get me to heaven. And of course I was excited, excited about that, but I was not excited about everything else. Yeah, it was very sad.

John Dehlin [01:09:20] It's like in that infinite mirror that you look at in the ceiling room, your audi seizure innie and says, who is that?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:09:29] Yeah, exactly. I don't recognize that I'm loving this analogy. We gotta keep it going, John. Absolutely perfect for this story and a great way to describe it. So. But that is exactly. And being so young and not able to discern that whole idea of this isn't me having no assertiveness, no inner voice, no courage to be able to kind of like look beyond and say, what is me? You know, that just wasn't developed at that time.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:56] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:09:58] So then you're married and I was just so shocked. In the first paragraph of you describing your marriage, you wrote I hated sex. And I'm just trying to think what would marriage be like if one of the two people hated sex?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:10:12] Yeah. So I had grown up being very scared of sex. Not like, like I wanted to do it. That's not what I meant. But I knew it was bad and so I suppressed all of those feelings. My assumption in my mind was that sex was going to be so powerful, like it was going to be so amazing that once somebody had it, they just like wouldn't be able to and they'd literally be fine having it with like anybody. That's kind of what like the fear that was built up in my mind is like, oh, you can't even risk going too far with anyone because then you'll go crazy.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:45] You can't control yourself. It's like an on off Switch where if you turn it on, it's just.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:10:50] It's on.

John Dehlin [01:10:50] It's like the Balrog has been released.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:52] Interesting. Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:10:53] And so people would say, well, didn't you realize you didn't have chemistry with David before? And I said, yes, I did realize, but I thought that sex was like this magic key, you know, that was gonna be amazing and it going to unlock all the things.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:11:09] Well, that didn't happen. And it was a huge struggle, actually. We weren't even able to be successfully intimate for two weeks because I was so closed up and it couldn't happen. And kudos to David because you can imagine how he must have been freaking out in his mind. And he didn't push me and he wasn't not mean. So he was very gentle with me through that whole thing. And I just kept on expecting it to get better and better, and it didn't.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:11:43] And so then what ended up happening? And I actually listened to an episode by Dr. Finlayson Fife recently, and she talked about this. She talked about the problems of duty sex, which is when you just have it because you think you have to.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:12:00] You feel like you have to do this for your partner. Right. And so even though you're consenting, you're not consenting. So I would say for probably the first eight years of our marriage, that was what our entire sexual life was like.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:12:17] And it was terrible for both of us. David hated it and I hated it. I thought I was just a very broken person who just hated sex. I guess I told him that many times. I would say, the problem's me, it's not you. I guess I just don't like this. I think it would be like this with anybody. That's what I would say. And for years and years, we just kind of kept on going on, but that built so much resentment. I started feeling really terrible thoughts about David because it did start feeling like, unconsensual, even though. Even though, as far as he knew, it was consensual.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:12:54] Like, I definitely always said yes, but in my mind I wasn't. And so inside I started feeling a lot of resentment towards him. And I just started feeling very broken. I started really, really hating myself.

John Dehlin [01:13:11] I mean, I'm just thinking about again, Princess and the Pea, or you know that repentance thing you did in high school where you're just. Just you're putting yourself on the altar, the sacrificial altar, silencing your inner voice and just conforming to what the church tells you is right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:13:29] Yes, absolutely. And the church Plays a huge part in this too. David got some terrible sexual advice from some church leaders in his efforts to try to search what to do from his part. I got some pretty terrible advice also. For a long time, I thought just all women felt like me and like, this was like, what you did as a wife. When I started discovering that women really enjoyed having those relationships with their husband, that was a really hard pill for me to swallow because it made me start thinking, did I do it wrong? Like, what. What's going on with me?

John Dehlin [01:14:07] What was the batter, vice? Yoga?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:14:08] Oh, my gosh. Like his. We would get the advice that, you know, the man needs it. You know, like they need it. So there you have to find a way to make it happen. He got the advice from leaders to ask for sex when he wanted it, which isn't a terrible advice. But the way they kind of made it sound was like, schedule something.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:14:33] Schedule something. The reason that was bad is because there was no conversation regarding consent. There was no option for me to say no. I was gonna eventually have to say yes. Like, okay, I could say no today, but then we would. We would have to schedule it for a week. And I for sure had to say yes. And if I said no again, I mean, that would be real, real problematic. And David didn't have the tools that he needed at the time to kind of recover from that rejection. You have to understand he was getting rejected a lot. And that feels terrible.

John Dehlin [01:15:04] How would it feel if. If your spouse isn't into you?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:15:07] Exactly. And so it was really weighing on him too. We were both kind of hating ourselves. And finally, after eight years, I mean, it's important to note also at this time, I was really digging into the church. Like the church gives you a recipe for if things are not successful, then do abc. Right. I was very confused. Cause I had done. Felt like I'd done everything right according to this church, But I was not finding the happiness that I wanted in my marriage or the happiness in my own personal self either. But I just kept on doing the recipe that they were giving me, which was, you know, attend church, read your patriarchal blessing, read the scriptures, pray more.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:15:51] I actually get very sensitive to people when they say, well, you know, maybe you haven't read so and so Scripture or something like that. And I cannot express enough. I read the scriptures. I A lot, and a lot of members do. I mean, I think especially people who've never been Mormon, they don't realize we read a lot of scriptures. We read the Old Testament, we read the New Testament, we Read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, and I was reading those on repeat over and over and over again. But that was really all that the church could offer you. And the idea was that if those things aren't working, like you said earlier, then maybe there's a problem with you. Like I was the problem.

Sexuality, Garments, and Growing Doubts

Margi Dehlin [01:16:30] Yeah. I mean, one thing I'm just feeling so deeply right now is, number one, normalizing the experience of what happens when your whole value is tied to something, purity. And it's literally, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And then you can do it. And I know Natasha Helfer, a sex therapist friend, had a whole program for around weddings for people in the church so that they actually didn't have sex the night they got married. It was like, it was a very step by step over time. It acknowledged actually psychologically, you know, what the feat is, what you're actually up against, I think, which is just very validating, you know, And I think this normalizes.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:22] I know a lot of, of women that have struggled in their story with this part and even beyond this eight year where it feels like to me, and when my emotional reaction to you describing it was around the story you created about yourself, I think this experience of women who don't know their sexual selves going into a relationship, you don't know what you don't know. And that's the. That's one thing. It's like living in a vacuum and you don't have resources and you don't have education, and that's one thing. And I feel for that. And a lot of women I know have stories like that.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:59] I think my own story. I have a lot of aspects of that too. But it's the heartbreaking part is the story like what you're telling yourself about yourself during that time and the judgment that you have. And it's just, it is, it's heartbreaking. It's just that is pain, you know, that you did not need on top of everything else.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:18:24] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's interesting you mentioned Natasha Helfer, because right around this time, some friends started sending me some information from Dr. Finlaysonfife and from Natasha Helfer. But here's the thing, and I know that they're both cognizant of this. I didn't even feel like I could listen to it.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:45] Because I'm sure it's excommunicated, Natasha.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:18:47] Exactly. And I was scared. And some of the things they would say Also at my mind then felt ludicrous. Like, I remember listening to an episode from Dr. Finlayson 5 and she said, you should never have to have sex if you don't want it. And I was like. I was like, she's wrong. She's absolutely wrong. Because I didn't have. Have any sort of cognizance of what it was like to know myself and to be in a relationship where we understood that about each other. I didn't understand what a healthy sexual life was like. And I also felt very nervous to find resources. And I don't feel like the church does a good job of encouraging looking for those resources. Like you were saying, like, all the young girls that do go through that.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:33] That's right. And even this idea of choice I can understand for you hearing, you know, Dr. Finlay, it's Finlayson fight. Finlayson fife. Say something to the effect of like, well, you know, consent.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:19:47] And you have a choice.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:48] You don't have to. But growing up in the context, I think for a lot of Mormon women, and particularly with some of the layers of your story choice, you actually making a decision independent of a man or a man's property preference or what they. That was dangerous to you in the past. Like, that's. You had these impactful experiences of like, oh, wait, I've learned not to do that. I've actually learned that. That's dangerous to me.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:20:17] Right? Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. It was interesting because there's. There. I had this byu, Idaho professor who taught religion courses, and I really respected him at the time, but he actually talked a lot about. About, like, the authoritative line, kind of. I remember him giving this talk about bishop versus first counselor, that kind of thing. And he was the first counselor in a bishopric. And he said he never disagreed with his bishop because he felt like it was not his place. He really talked about, like, this priesthood line of power. And I remember him also tying that also to marriage. And I think I took that to heart because when David and I were married, I'm way more of a dominant personality than he is.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:20:58] He's very reserved. And I remember giving him a lecture in our first year of marriage, being like, you gotta step it up, bud. Cause I'm just gonna run all over you. And I'm not supposed to be running all over you. You're supposed to be running all over me kind of thing like you're supposed to be leading.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:12] This is our template for relationships.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:21:14] Exactly. Someone's running all over someone.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:16] Exactly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:21:17] And so I felt like I was supposed to Be the supporter. And he was supposed to be the head. And in every. Every aspect of our marriage, I was always kind of trying to push him to do that. And I was always trying to be more submissive, like, with, like, scripture study and prayer. David would never be like, hey, let's pray. So I'd be like, you know, like, nudging him. Like, David, you gotta tell the room that we're gonna pray and you gotta assign somebody. Because I was kind of the one enforcing that. So it's interesting, when it came to intimacy, I also was definitely giving deference to him. Like, could I have had the ability to step up? Maybe. But I hadn't learned to trust myself.

John Dehlin [01:21:57] Another thing Natasha, and I'm imagining Jennifer teach or have taught, is that if a woman can explore her own body, then she might know what brings her pleasure, which might enhance the mutual relationship. And I would not imagine that would have been received well by you if you had heard that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:22:16] No.

John Dehlin [01:22:16] In your full Mormon self.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:22:18] No. And another BYU Idaho story. Man, BYU Idaho is crazy. So there's. There was this class. It was like. I don't remember what it was called, but it was like an intro to family marriage. And you weren't allowed to take it actually, until you were married. Because they talked about things.

John Dehlin [01:22:35] They talked about intimacy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:22:36] They talked about intimacy, and this is how they talked about intimacy. I wanted to. The big issues was like, well, what do you do with your garments when you're intimate? You're supposed to wear your garments all the time. So, like, can you take them off? There was a heavy debate in this classroom about this. And eventually the teacher, Professor Sister says, you know, it's appropriate for you to. I'm not making fun of this, Sister. I'm so sorry. I took it very seriously at the time. It's appropriate for you to take off your garments when you're about to be intimate with. With your husband and fold them and place them under your pillow.

John Dehlin [01:23:13] Under your pillow.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:23:14] And then have the act. And then put them back on. So the way I was preparing myself for sex, as you can see, there was no sort of like, hot Hotness.

John Dehlin [01:23:26] Hot.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:23:26] No. And I mean.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:28] Or being in the moment or.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:23:30] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:23:30] It's like, let's fold up our garments. Let's put them under the edge of the garment.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:23:34] Folding time.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:36] Yeah. Are yours under your pillow? Wait, I don't. You didn't fold those.

John Dehlin [01:23:40] I'm ready.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:23:41] Go back. I'm ready. Refold those garments, please. That's exactly it. So there was no self exploration. And then David Again, kind of suggested I go on that path. I remember when he said it, I wrote this in my outline too. The breaking point for us was I just really couldn't hate myself anymore when it came to our sexual relationship. I thought I was all the priority problem because David is a very kind man. He was like, hey, like, you're not the problem. And he's like, and. And I feel like crap making you feel worse. So we are not going to have sex unless you want to. And I said, well, then we will never have sex. And he said, that's okay. And then he kind of nudged me in the direction of trying to, to figure myself out in that way.

John Dehlin [01:24:35] Cause sometimes a person, a Mormon woman or man, will find out that they're gay, for example, because they never got to experiment with that beforehand, and they find out that that's the problem.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:48] Or asexual or very low desire.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:24:52] Right. So I approached the first eight to ten years of our marriage. I approached it as I was just a very low, low, low desire person who hated, hated sex and, you know, all these things. And you can definitely be a low desire person. I have since found that it is much more complex than that. And that is not really the case.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:25:11] But for all those years having been bottled up for so much and having, I can't stress enough, we didn't have that compatibility. That's the number one thing David and I learned about ourselves. We didn't have the compatibility. And it is important to have that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:25:27] So, yeah, that kind of led us to. I don't know if we're ready to move on to this point, but it led us to. We had two boys by this point, I should say, and we were really broken in our marriage at this point. I remember a friend suggesting that we separate. And I was like, aghast. I'm like, it's not happening. Like, I made a covenant in this marriage and we are taking it to the end. But David was pretty miserable.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:25:57] A very strange thing also about our marriage is him and I do not fight. We just don't. We're very good friends, so we talk very reasonably to each other. This confuses so many of our friends. And I know there's so many friends who are going to be listening right now who are going to be like, shocked by all this information because they consider us, me and David, just very close, close knit because we don't fight. So during this, yeah, during this time, it was not contentious in that way. Like, we weren't yelling at each other. We were being successful parents we were managing the house and our relationship together, but intimacy was not there at all.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:26:36] I had just had my second son and I started to go crazy over garments. For anyone who has had a baby and experience, experienced the fluctuation of hormones, you understand that like, certain things just happen. And for me, after my second stunt, I couldn't stand to have like anything on my body. I didn't like anything tight fitting. And it was driving me crazy to wear garments. I literally wanted to rip them off my body. And of course I felt so much guilt about this because you're supposed to wear them at all times. So I started going into this extreme deep dive of why we wear garments.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:27:15] And I knew the, the textbook answer. Like, we wear garments because it's a representation of our covenants to God. Like we receive our garments after we're endowed in the temple. It's a representation of God. But for me also, we haven't talked about it, but I, I have a degree in English. Analysis research is very important to me. I felt at the time like I was very passionate about information. And at the time I really thought that I knew a lot about the church and I did in ref. Church sources. I knew a lot about church sources. I had read so much about the history of the church, but only from trusted church sources because I felt that they had all the information.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:27:56] So I thought, surely I will find out all the information I need to know about garments. I really need to know why they ever happened. Like, are we wearing these in heaven when we die? Like, did God tell us to wear? Like, why? How long am I going to be wearing?

Margi Dehlin [01:28:11] Where?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:11] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:28:12] Is there an end date?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:13] That's right, exactly. So I guess a silver medal. I'm okay with maybe a silver medal with garments. I think too, I was envisioning, I remember hoping like, oh man, I hope we don't wear these in heaven. And if we do, I hope they're like prettier. Like, I hope they're different.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:30] That's right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:31] So like maybe like a slip, like a cute slip or something. I didn't know, but it was, it was driving me.

John Dehlin [01:28:37] Is that your profit? Because it just came out with a, a garment slip. Did you know that?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:41] No.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Oh, you didn't know that?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:43] No.

John Dehlin [01:28:43] Just in the past couple weeks, think about, they've come out with, they've come

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:47] out with new garments that might have saved me.

John Dehlin [01:28:49] And there's, there's a slip option now for women. Bottom slip.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:54] You don't have to wear the shorts.

John Dehlin [01:28:56] Biker shorts.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:28:57] That's huge.

John Dehlin [01:28:58] Yeah, well, you're a prophet.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:29:00] Does this when you're prophet and they're sleep.

John Dehlin [01:29:02] No, I say you, you were a prophet.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:29:04] I was a prophet, yeah. So wait, do they have sleeves on them?

John Dehlin [01:29:07] They just came out. Out with women garment tops that are sleeveless.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:29:12] Wow, that's amazing.

John Dehlin [01:29:13] We just did an episode on it

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:29:14] last week that is mind blowing to me because I know to young people in the church these days, this feels very normal and this feels like this is what the church is. This was not what the church was when I was growing up. So it is astonishing to me when they make big changes and to me that's huge.

John Dehlin [01:29:32] Oh, there are these. We have to show you on Instagram and TikTok. Now there are these influencer young Mormon women that are like, where are my garment girlies? Look at this sleeveless dress I get to wear to church. You know, and form fitting things and their slip under their shorter skirt and it's become a thing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:29:53] I mean I totally would have been with those girlies if I had still been in the church. I would have been so excited about that. But from the outside looking, it does feel disturbing.

John Dehlin [01:30:01] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:30:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:03] Because you had to go through what I mean.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:30:05] Yeah. I mean I had to wear them or risk damnation. That sounds dramatic, but that is how serious it was in my mind.

John Dehlin [01:30:14] Well enough to make you question the church.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:30:16] Exactly. And so I was thinking in my head, if I just know the origin of garments, I'll be able to figure it out. I'll be able to make this work in my mind. And I thought it's gotta be with the origin has to be with Joseph Smith. Right. So I did start doing the deep dive through all church sources. So unhelpful. There's really not a lot of information about garments in reference to like historical information.

John Dehlin [01:30:43] And that's because they come from the Masonic lodge. Joseph Smith was a Mason and he got the temple ceremony and the garments as I understand it from the Masons. So the church says it's sacred, but really it's Masonic. And so they don't want people digging into it it like you did, honestly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:30:59] Right. And at the time I knew none of that. Right. I didn't know about the Masonic symbols, which is crazy because it's very obvious in the square. I just hadn't done my research on Masonry, I guess. I don't know. I remember a brother of mine had mentioned it right around this time. He said the reason because all of my siblings are not active.

John Dehlin [01:31:20] Oh yeah, all five are out. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:31:24] My poor parents. I mean, I do really feel for them because it, you know, they're looking at themselves saying, what did we do wrong? We did everything that we were supposed to do. And we were supposed to have this multi generational family passing the church along. And they're not gonna have that.

John Dehlin [01:31:41] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:31:41] Anyway, so I remember my brother kind of mentioning offhand what broke him was all the Masonic stuff. And I was like, I don't know what he's talking about. So. So nothing. So I start looking at church sources because the church tells you point blank we have the information, don't go looking for the information outside of our sources. Because I mean, basically it's. I don't want to say it's Satan, but that's the idea. Right. It's people trying to slip up the church. You're going to lose your faith if you look at information around the church. And you don't need to, because we're telling you the truth.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:32:13] Okay, So I did that. I looked at all the church sources and the best I could come up with as to why we wore our garments was Joseph Smith had been inspired by God to create this garment. There's. You can look up pictures of it. It used to be like this one

John Dehlin [01:32:27] piece that went to your wrists and your ankles. Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:32:32] And I also found out that the original idea, which this makes sense in reference to Masonry, was that you only wore it during, you know, like rituals making covenants. And I remember at the time thinking, well, that makes sense to me. Like, it makes sense to wear a garment in the temple. It would even make sense to me to wear a garment on Sunday when we're partaking of the sacrament. It didn't make sense to me to wear it all the time. Because you look at Christians, I have so many Christian friends, and they wear a cross. Right. And that cross for them symbolizes their devotion to Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:33:07] You don't need long underwear basically.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:33:09] Right. You don't need this really unattractive long underwear. And I was going out of my mind. Yes. I was nursing.

John Dehlin [01:33:16] I was healing from a vaginal birth.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:33:19] Right, exactly. And none of that is ever taken into account. And it's kind of an unspoken rule. I mean, there's grace there. You know, moms will say, you know, you don't. If you don't feel like you can wear it today, like, that's fine. We understand you're nursing. Like, that's kind of it. But then you also know there's a timetable on it. Like, well, as soon as I stop nursing, I have To.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:38] And also get back to it. You're being watched. Like, people do notice a lot of garments. And if you. If you're wearing them or not.

John Dehlin [01:33:48] Policing your underwear. Honestly, that's the thing in Mormonism.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:33:52] Oh, yes. They definitely want to know if you're wearing your garments. And before I started doing this garment research, because of this issue is having postpartum. It's not a real. It's a natural thing. I say issue that sounds negative. It's just because of all the changes I was going through. I really was not feeling comfortable in dresses. So I started wearing pants to church. I had bought this really cute pantsuit for a work event of my husband's, and I never got to wore it. And it was driving me crazy. And it was one of the only things I felt pretty in postpartum. So I started wearing it to church. And women don't wear pants. They do now, kinda. But they didn't back then. And it was shocking. It was shocking.

John Dehlin [01:34:33] No, 10 years ago or whatever, there was a. Where Mormon women wear pants to church. It was like a movement led by kind of the precursors to the ordained women movement, Mormon feminists. And it was like a national news story that Mormon women were bucking authority and wearing pants to church. It was the thing. It was a big thing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:34:54] And so you bringing that up. Exactly. So what does wearing pants to church mean? Bucking authority.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:59] That's right. You're kind of radical.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:35:00] Exactly. Received when you do it with love and sarcasm and discomfort. But it was shocking for people. My friends started calling me the feminist, which is hilarious. As if that's a bad thing. You know, some of people really liked it. And some girls started wearing pants to church too. My mom was just horrified, bless her, because first she's British, you know, so she's so proper.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:35:31] And then second, the whole church thing. But then at the same time, she was kind of proud. So. But yeah, people would start making jokes as soon as I. And this is even before I really started my faith crisis. People would make jokes when I wore the pants. They'd say, oh, like, are you on your way out? That kind of thing. Or like, now you're a feminist. And they said it with love, like they still loved me. They were happy I was there. They got used to the pants. But it was a symbol.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's the slippery slope. Pants with a slippery slope.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:36:03] Pants with a slippery slope. So then we get back to garments. And I understood from all the historical stuff that I had read about Joseph Smith, you know, we wore garments when we did rituals that started making sense, but it just didn't feel like enough information.

Discovering Mormon History and Losing Faith

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:36:15] My friends knew that I was struggling with this really hardcore. And one of my friends said, hey, I found this like Q and a randomly on YouTube. It was a Mormon Stories. Q and A. And she said, you should watch it. It might have information. It's called Mormon Stories. So I was like, perfect, this is gonna have the information that I need. And I don't remember what the title was, but it made me feel like maybe you could have talked about garments in there. I don't think y' all ever talked about garments, but there were some other things that were mentioned. And one of the things that was mentioned was the CES letter.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:36:49] Something else that was mentioned was Fanny Alger. And I, like I said before, research and information is very important to me. I felt like I was a very well studied person when it came to Mormon situation topics, Mormon scriptures and Mormon history. And I was not familiar with the name Fanny Alger at all.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:37:10] And that very much bothered me. I was like, you know, I'm not going to be the person who doesn't know about Fanny Alger. Alger. It's Alger, isn't it? I don't know how to pronounce it, but I'm not going to be the person who doesn't know about her. I just assumed. Apparently everybody knows about her and I don't know about her.

John Dehlin [01:37:25] And our never Mormons are like, who in the heck is Fanny Algar?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:37:28] Exactly. And so who is she?

John Dehlin [01:37:30] Tell us who she is.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:37:31] Okay, so Fanny Alger was a young woman who worked in Joseph Smith and Emma Smith's household. Was she 17 at the time? 16 or 17?

John Dehlin [01:37:40] She was mid. Mid teens.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:37:42] She worked.

John Dehlin [01:37:43] Not an adult.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:37:43] Is the. Not an adult? Yes. Not 18, which is the important thing. She worked in their household and Joseph Smith started having some sort of relationship with her. Dirty, filthy affair. Isn't that the quote?

John Dehlin [01:37:59] Dirty, nasty, filthy affairs.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:38:01] Yeah, Dirty, nasty, filthy affair. The reason we have that quote is because Oliver Cowdery caught them doing something in a barn. You can guess what that something was. And he called it a dirty, filthy, nasty affair. Which to me meant that they had sex.

John Dehlin [01:38:17] Yeah. And I just recently reread this account. It may have even been and Emma that saw Joseph and Fanny through the barn. And then it got related to Oliver. But Mormons, it's a big. Oliver's a big deal because he was one of the scribes to the Book of Mormon. He's one of the three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. And at the time he found out about Fannie, he was like co president of the church. So you really don't get any higher than Oliver Cowdery.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:38:47] Yes. And if you understand Mormon history, you also understand this is kind of. Kind of like the first. This is a catalyst incident, Fanny. And so from Oliver's point of view, what he was building with Joseph was one thing. He had an idea of what he was building with Joseph, and he was not happy about what went on between Joseph and Fanny.

John Dehlin [01:39:06] Because adultery is forbidden in all Christian churches. Yes, but polygamy was even forbidden in Mormonism in 1835 or 1836.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:39:16] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:39:16] So there was no reason Joseph would be Abigail sex with a teenage girl who worked in his house. There's no good reason.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:39:22] Yes, that's exactly correct. And you know, Oliver Cowdery recognized this and brought it to light. It was disturbing to him. And then they excommunicated him.

John Dehlin [01:39:31] Yeah, yeah. And that was a problem when you learned it for you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:39:36] Huge problem. So when I originally heard the name Fanny Alger and CES letter, I didn't think anything of them because I had no context. But then I started doing my research and I found out what you said. It was extremely difficult, disturbing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:39:52] I grew up. And then after I read those things, I read the full CES letter and I was able to explain away so much of it. I mean, I read everything about the Book of Mormon and the Necronisms, and I was like, oh, we just don't know yet. You know, God will make it clear. You know, maybe those skeletons are buried really deep under the ground. Maybe they've been brought up to heaven. I was able to explain away all the things. But then when I started reading about Joseph's relationships with women, the true nature of his polygamy, it was clear as daylight to me. It was wrong.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:40:24] And what's crazy is a big reason I think it's wrong is because of my Mormon upbringing. I knew it was morally incorrect. And like, I mean, just like that, I was done. I remember having this thought in my head because I was still fully believing at that point. I remember thinking, even if this is the true church, I cannot Mormon morally follow this man who formed this church.

John Dehlin [01:40:48] You mentioned Helen Moore Kimball, another one of Joseph's wives. And by the way, now the Mormon Church is trying to write off Fanny Alger as Joseph's first polygamous wife.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:40:59] Right.

John Dehlin [01:41:00] So wife number two after Emma, in theory, and that God somehow approved it. The problem is Fanny Oliver thing happened in like 1835, 1836. The sealing power didn't even come. The power of, to seal couples together in eternal marriages didn't come until a couple years after Fanny. And then the polygamy revelation didn't come until like 1843 or 1844. So there's no way to really spin Fanny Alger as a polygamous wife, even though the Church tries to do that now. But you mentioned in your outline Helena Kimball as being a deal breaker as well. Do you want to say why? And she was one of Joseph's 34 wives. Why was Helen's story particularly problematic for you?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:41:41] Yes. Well, I should just mention, just right before this is. It's not like it is now. I grew up not thinking Joseph really participated in polygamy. And when I did find out that he did participate in polygamy, it was in college and it was dressed up as, oh, you know, the Lord told him he had to because he inquired, you know, because there's that scripture about like, oh well, because you asked about it, now you gotta follow it.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:07] So.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:42:07] And he was a reluctant follower of polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:42:10] He really loved God, threatened him with death if he didn't exactly have sex with 30 women.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:42:17] Exactly, exactly. So. And that also he wasn't intimate with these women.

John Dehlin [01:42:22] That's another thing that they said.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:42:24] That they said. Right. That's how I understood it in college.

John Dehlin [01:42:27] Which isn't true.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:42:28] Right, exactly. And that he loved his wife and you know, all those types of things. So then I come to find these real sources and I cannot emphasize enough real sources. These are not made up sources because

John Dehlin [01:42:42] there are sources the church now in 2025 acknowledge as being factual. But 10, 20 years ago, they were still trying to hide or deny these sources.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:42:52] Right. And an example of these sources is Helen Mar. Kimball's journal entries written by her own hand. So this is from Helen Marr Kimball. So Helen Marr Kimball was a 14 year old girl. She was the daughter of Heber C. Kimball who was high ranking in the church. It was very important for Heber C. Kimball to be in good favor with Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith approached them about. I don't know if he approached Helen directly or if he approached, I don't remember. But he approached the family about Mary Helen Marr.

John Dehlin [01:43:24] Weirdly, he first approached Heber about marrying his wife.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:43:28] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:43:30] Which is. And he actually got Heber to consent to let him. Joseph marry Heber's wife. And then Joseph said no. I'm just kidding. That was just a test.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:43:40] Yeah. Give me Helen.

John Dehlin [01:43:41] Right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:43:42] The fourth test.

John Dehlin [01:43:43] But I do, I do want your daughter.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:43:46] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:43:46] Who's 14. Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:43:48] Right. And when you read Helen Marr Kimball's journal entry, that's all it took, was reading her journal entry for me because it was so obvious to me. And maybe this is the little girl Jenny talking. It was so obvious to me that her inner voice was saying she didn't want to do this because she writes basically that her mom, when she got the news that Joseph Smith wanted her to be his wife, her mom was devastated and didn't want her to do it and knew the hard life that she would have if she. She did. Helen talks about, you know, I'm summarizing here, but basically how she also didn't want to. But upon reflection, she was going to do the right thing for her family. The right thing.

John Dehlin [01:44:34] Your princess and the peace story.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:44:36] Exactly. So maybe that's why it resonated with me. But it was very obvious. Obvious to me that first of all, that feels pretty. On Joseph Smith. That feels like pretty predatory behavior. Especially since I find out later this isn't a sole incident. He did this often with girls.

John Dehlin [01:44:53] He was like 36, 37 at the time. He wanted this 14 year old girl.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:44:58] And even if we were to take the argument. Okay, so the argument of course is he just married Helen to link their families, he never had sex with her, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Even if that were the case, which is probably untrue. Which is probably untrue. And I fully believe he definitely had sexual relationships with most of these women.

John Dehlin [01:45:17] Well, the church acknowledges that now.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:45:19] Yes. Even if it were true that he didn't, he still married a 14 year old girl and put her in isolation. Because what people don't realize, and she writes about this in her journal, is that she could no longer go to social events. There was actually a boy that she had been interested in that she writes about and she was no longer to see that. Like she couldn't see that boy, boy anymore. She couldn't go to social events anymore. She had to just stay in her home and be Joseph's secret wife.

John Dehlin [01:45:45] And it was secret because it was illegal. And so Joseph was lying to the world about it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:45:50] Lying to the world. And his church.

John Dehlin [01:45:52] Yeah, yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:45:52] His own church, his own people. Yeah, yeah. And then.

John Dehlin [01:45:55] And his wife.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:45:56] And his wife who was not happy about it. Emma wasn't sitting over here like, oh, I know, it's what the Lord wants. She was very upset.

John Dehlin [01:46:03] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:46:04] She, you know, I think if you were. This could. Is Just a guess, but from a woman's point of view and from everything I've read, if we were to say Emma Smith down here and really talk about Joseph, she would say my husband had a major issue with adultery.

John Dehlin [01:46:16] Oh for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:46:17] And I mean my heart breaks for her because of that.

John Dehlin [01:46:19] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:46:21] So I've had so many people when I tell them the Helen Mark Kimball where they say this is the worst retort ever, where they go, oh well, you know, it was so common back then for men to marry 14 year old girls. It wasn't that common.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:46:36] And Joseph Smith had no reason to marry her, like really no reason. He deprived her of her own personal happiness by forcing that upon her. And if we're talking about it being a revelation from God for him to choose Helen, why would God want her to suffer like that? It didn't make sense to me. So that's why when I read that story, I just knew instantly morally it was wrong. And then I was out after that. I, like I said before, I had this thought in my head, I was like, even if the church is true, I cannot in good conscience be a part of it anymore because of this history.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:47:16] Besides the fact that it was all hidden from me, truly hidden and lied about. I saw this tiktoker the other day talking about how the church doesn't hide information. I was like, it definitely did when I was younger and I know it still does now, but it definitely did when I was younger. So besides the fact that this stuff was hidden and lied about, it's like extremely, extremely immoral in my opinion. And so I was out after that.

John Dehlin [01:47:39] Yeah. Can I talk going back to this idea of consent. Can a 14 year old girl consent when her parents are telling her that a prophet of God has chosen her to be his special 20x25th wife, you know, in 1840, whatever right. Is consent even impossible for a 14 year old girl?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:48:03] I don't think so. And if you, if it were me, if I were Helen Mark Kimball and it were me, I would have done exactly what Helen said. I would have not wanted to marry this old man.

John Dehlin [01:48:13] He was an old man who had 30 other wives.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:48:16] I would not have wanted to. Most 14 year old girls don't look at almost 40 year old men and say I want to marry them. They look at 14, 15, 16 year old boys and say he's cute. You know, that's just how it was. It gets different as we get older. But like when we're young that's what we, we want. And so if it Were me, if I were Helen Mark Kimball, I would have in my head said, no, but absolutely done what my parents wanted me to do. And I think that's in a way, abuse, right?

John Dehlin [01:48:43] Not just in a way. It's some of the worst possible kinds of abuse.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:47] Yes. So as you're actually digging in and learning things, are you sharing in real time time with your husband? Are you doing this alone or.

Leaving the Church and Finding Her Voice

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:48:58] I am doing this alone. David and I are very different personalities, and I'm a knowledge seeker, and he's just happy to get along. And so I'm doing, like, the deep dive. And I'm kind of also a crusader. So I was sharing all of this with him. I was like, can you believe? And I don't know that he really cared. But when I brought to light to him that I was going to stop, I was done. I was going to stop going. He said, oh, thank God. I haven't wanted to go for years.

John Dehlin [01:49:25] Wow. And he didn't feel comfortable telling you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:49:28] He did not. And different things kind of were the red flags for David. He's an accountant, so I need not tell you what the red flag was. It's money.

John Dehlin [01:49:38] Oh. So like Ensign Peak and the church's $300 billion and the SEC and the IRS fraud and scandal and what's crazy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:49:47] And I'm going to give David major props here. That was before. This was before we knew about that stuff. But David's an accountant and he audits nonprofits. And he. I remember him bringing this up to me about a year before I did my deep dive. I was like, you're ridiculous. And he was said, he's like, it's really weird that the church doesn't give a full report of their financials.

John Dehlin [01:50:08] It isn't transparent, in a sense.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:50:10] It's not transparent, he said, because that's

John Dehlin [01:50:12] required for all 501C3s that are church, right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:50:16] Yes. And he said, and it's also really weird that all their auditing is done in house. And he just didn't feel right about it.

John Dehlin [01:50:24] Yeah, they don't use external big four accounting firm auditors.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:50:28] Yeah. And so from an auditing accountant standpoint, he was like, something's up. And he was done paying tithing. There was this incident in our marriage. I got very upset with him about it, actually. This is when we were both very faithful. Before I had a faith crisis. He didn't pay tithing for a year. And I didn't know until tithing settlement. And I was so mad at him, like, so mad that almost Broke our marriage in that moment. I was so upset first that he had lied about it. And he did lie to me about it for a year because. And he told me later. He's like, I was afraid to tell you because I thought if I told you, you'd make me pay it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:51:06] And I was like, well, of course I would. I was upset because I felt like he was making me pay the decision for two people instead of just one, because his income represented also my income. So that meant I had not paid full tithing for an entire year either.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:51:21] So I was very upset about it. But he. So the point of that, telling that story is he had been thinking about it for a while. It had been bothering him for a while.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:30] It wasn't your fault. You didn't lead him out.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:51:32] No, no. And it made the transition out easy because I didn't have David begging me to stay. And then we had to decide what we wanted to do about our kids for about six months. My oldest at this time had been participating in primary, and he really loved it. He, like, just. He would tell people all the time, I love Jesus. I didn't want to kill that. I also didn't want to be.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:51:58] I didn't want to give him the same upbringing I had. I didn't want to strip him of choice. I wanted him to decide for himself. So for about six months, I took him to church still. And then after about six months, I started asking him if he wanted to go. And for a while he did. And then I would go with him when he wanted to go. And then I kept asking and he started saying he didn't want to go, so we didn't go. And then I started asking him if he wanted to go to different churches, and we tried a few other churches, and now we basically just attend anything. Currently, he believes in Jesus, but that's been developed on his own, and we don't discourage it at all.

John Dehlin [01:52:37] Yeah. Let our kids have their own journeys.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:41] Don't be an extrinsic, authoritative, forceful force in our children's lives. Don't pass down that tradition.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:52:51] Right. That's the hope. I don't know if I'll achieve it, but I'm trying to.

John Dehlin [01:52:56] Yeah. Okay. So how many years ago did you and David just kind of leave the Mormon Church?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:53:02] It's been about four years ago.

John Dehlin [01:53:04] Okay, so four years ago, you both mutually arrive at the conclusion that the church isn't true and you're going to stop going?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:53:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:53:13] And by that point, how many years had you been in Sort of an intimacy. Less marriage in terms of, you know, certain types of intimacy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:53:23] Yeah. At that point, we had been married about 11 years, and we had struggled from the beginning.

John Dehlin [01:53:29] So that's 11 years of being in a marriage that wasn't feeling right to you from the beginning?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:53:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:53:34] Okay.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:53:36] And so then leaving the church gave me courage to start deciding who I was and what I wanted. And I realized when I left that I had never done that work. So the first thing that I did was I tried to get a job. At this point, my kids were 6 and 3, and I decided that I wanted to try to become financially independent. David and I were both starting to lean towards separating. So I thought, man, I really got to get my feet under me. So that's when I became a teacher. I taught high school English and I really, really loved it. And I worked full time and I mommed full time. And David. David and I did separate for about a year.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:21] And how was that? How did that feel? How did you process that?

John Dehlin [01:54:26] Yeah, because that's not a trivial thing. To be Mormon your whole life and then to have children and your husband's a primary breadwinner, and then all of a sudden you're what, leaving the church and going back into the workplace with young kids.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:54:43] Kids, yes. And having a. I mean, a full on existential crisis at the time. I don't. I don't know if people in the church really appreciate how hard it is to leave, because you really want the Mormon Church to be true. It provides a lot of safety and it also gives you the path. Right. But then when you leave, you have to decide what you believe. It can be very scary.

John Dehlin [01:55:06] You got to figure it all out. And there are a lot of ways you can experience joy, but also danger and get in trouble, right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:55:14] Absolutely, absolutely. And a Mormon would say, well, that's why you don't leave the church. But me, with my having experience what I've experienced, I would say, well, that's. That is life like, that's the beauty of life is. Is finding it out, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes and doing better.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:55:32] You know, you're gonna make. Make mistakes. So, yeah, it was huge. Separating was very, very hard. And I can't emphasize that enough. Our marriage is still a little bit in limbo, and it still continues to be hard because David and I are so devoted to our children. He's a wonderful father, and I try to be a good mother. I mean, I'm as devoted my kids as any mom. And we really want also each of us to Be okay. We want each of us to be okay for financially. And it was the same at the time. David was quite upset at this time, more than he is now.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:56:06] And I totally understand it. I was both freaking out because I'm having this existential crisis. I am going back to work. I'm juggling motherhood with it. I'm separated. But I was also excited to finally explore and figure out who I was. I loved working. I loved being in the education sphere of English again with my colleagues. Teachers are so smart. I mean, my colleagues. I had the best conversations with them. I felt like I was in college again. Like, the things that they would talk about, the things that they were reading, the things that they were finding out about.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:56:44] I loved doing that, and I loved my students. And David and I had both decided that we would also date other people at this time.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:51] Okay, yeah, that is a lot. That is a full life.

John Dehlin [01:56:55] That's too much.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:56] For sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:56:57] It was a lot. And we did both participate in dating. And if you've ever dated when you're older or you're exiting a marriage, I mean, it isn't, like, fun, you know, it's hard. But I did. We both were with two different people. He had kind of a successful little mini relationship with a woman. And then I was with some. Somebody that I absolutely adored. I. I fell head over heels for this person. I was just totally wrapped up because it was the first time I had entered a relationship with somebody where I felt what you should feel. I mean, just since high school. Since high school, yes. So chemistry, attraction, safety. We just got along. There was like a magnetism. We had the right personalities that meshed with each other. All of the things I love that

Margi Dehlin [01:57:56] and I love, too, a little different than high school because not hiding it, not feeling shame necessarily about it being able to be. And you actually trying to tap into who you are and what you want. So the Innies and Audi kind of whole thing not necessarily being there in the same way. Is that right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:58:18] Oh, absolutely. And my goal, I remember I made mental goals when I left the church. And one of my number one goals was learning to listen to myself again. And my voice was shouting to go for it with this guy. And so I did, and it felt amazing. But then this is where life kicks in, right? This is the lesson of life. Eventually that ended, and it wasn't by my choice. And it was kind of a little bit of a traumatic ending of that relationship. Like, I would have continued that relationship and gone as far as I could go with it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:58:54] But he made a different choice. And that was heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. And it did leave me a little bit of a moment. I had a moment where I was like, okay, I was listening to my voice. My voice told me, go for it. And it didn't pay pan out. But my perspective on that now is, you know, that is life. It doesn't mean you shouldn't follow your voice. Like young Jenny would have said, that means you shouldn't follow your voice. But now it doesn't mean that you shouldn't not follow your voice. It's just that is what happens.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:59:24] I wasn't super equipped at that time to handle how that all went down. Like y' all have stated, there was a lot going on with everything that I was working through. I. I was terrified of being able to take care of my children financially.

Jennie Latham Johnson [01:59:43] I knew I couldn't on a teacher's salary. I was so stressed out. Everything had just ended with this guy that I was with. And I was so stressed. I was barely sleeping. And that's not an exaggeration. I mean, an hour a night for six months.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:59] Oh, wow.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:00:00] And I wasn't eating. I couldn't. And So I lost £15. And that was a wake up call for me too. You know, it was a learning experience. Losing weight isn't always a great thing. I wasn't in a healthy place. I was just barely functioning. I was. I think I was holding it together okay, for my kids, but inside I was just numb.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:00:25] Very, very depressed to the point where I was starting to have intrusive thoughts, very scary thoughts. Things like, you know, it'd be better if you weren't here. You know, why are you even here? What are you even doing? Your children would be better off without you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:00:44] Things like that. And that was very scary. They never turned into anything other than those thoughts. But David at this point recognized that I was struggling and he was very worried. And so he moved back in full time.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:00:58] We were doing kind of like the separation we were doing was what we call nesting, where him and I would leave, the kids would always stay. So he just stopped leaving and he kind of moved in and really took care of all of us. So big props to David.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:12] That is something.

John Dehlin [02:01:14] Stand up guy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:01:15] He is.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:16] I love this too, because it also speaks to love. You know, that love, they're so. It's not one. One thing. It's not. And so I love that, you know, that love between you two. There were aspects that really changed and had to change during this time, but also there was a love Preserved clearly there between you two.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:01:41] Yeah. Thanks for. Thanks for saying that. It makes me actually a little emotional because I remember early on in our marriage, I used to complain to him that sometimes I felt like I an object. Like I was only loved for what I provided for him and not who I was.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:55] Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:01:55] I've complimented him recently that he's done a fantastic job of showing me that he cares for me as a person, that I have value in who. Who I am, just as I am.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:06] Yeah, that's.

John Dehlin [02:02:07] I can see the emotion coming up for you.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:08] Yeah, that's a big one.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:02:10] Yeah. So there's definitely love for David, and I know he feels the same. So that year was a great year learning experience for us because it taught us to put away any sort of animosity or resentment we had towards each other. We were very focused on making our family unit work. We knew then and we know now that our family unit looks very different than some other people's. But we also feel like we're family, like we have these children together. So during this time, we were just kind of coasting. I was continuing to work, and David and I had one. One night together where we were intimate. 1. And it's. This is not an exaggeration. People do not believe me. They're like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, no. It was once, and I mean, once in years, and I got pregnant.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:56] Wow. Yes. Mm.

An Unexpected Pregnancy and Twin Daughters

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:03:00] And that was shocking. It was the first time I had ever gotten pregnant when I wasn't expecting it. And I didn't know how to flip. I was terrified, honestly, because I was expecting. David and I were still planning at this time on divorce. In fact, he had mentioned a few times he was kind of, like, pushing me, not in a bad way, but saying, you know, we're gonna have to resolve what we wanna do. And I think it's probably divorce. So that's what we. The conversation we had been having. And so then I found out I was pregnant. I had these two young boys. I was working full time as a teacher, and. And I just didn't know how I was going to do it. So I didn't tell anybody about the pregnancy for eight weeks. I just sat on it. I told my dog, but that's it.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:52] Because dogs are trustworthy that way.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:03:54] Dogs will never give away your secrets. They won't. So, yeah. And I sat on that pregnancy news and. And then a cute, sweet friend of mine who. She's become my best friend in recent years, I was out with her and our children, and I was really tired and in a bad mood. And she's like, what is going on with you? And I just said, I'm pregnant. Like that. And she was shocked because she knew everything that was going on in my life. And she said, okay, we're going to get through this. We're going to get through it together. And that's what I needed to hear. And then she said, you know, have you told David? And I said, no, I haven't told David. Oh, I hadn't told David.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:38] David didn't know.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:04:39] David didn't know. I hadn't told David. And she said, have you made a doctor's appointment? And I said, no, I haven't done that either. And she's like, well, that's what we're going to do. And she helped me make the appointment. And I went home that day and I told David ago was this. Well, this was in. If we're thinking Ty, it would have been like April, May of 2023.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:02] Wow.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:05:03] And I was eight weeks along.

John Dehlin [02:05:05] So it's about two years ago, eight weeks along.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:08] And at this point. So you've held this to yourself. A little dog confidence, but pretty much on your own for eight weeks. And in your mind, are you thinking of, we're still going forward with separating and divorcing?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:05:29] Like, did it alter your thought where

Margi Dehlin [02:05:30] you were like, oh, now, or were you kind of like, now I've got teaching, we've got, you know, the. The whole separation plan, and we have another child? Like, how. How are you thinking about it in

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:05:44] the eight weeks where it's just you

Margi Dehlin [02:05:45] and this little life growing inside you?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:05:49] Yeah. David and I had literally, during this time, been kind of like, heating up the divorce talk. And so I fully expected that we were still going to get a divorce. After I told him about the pregnancy, he was shocked. He didn't react badly. I don't want to. I don't want to make it seem like he reacted badly, but he was shocked. And in the next coming week or so, so we were talking about how it was all going to work with separation and divorce, but we were fully planning on moving forward with that. And then I went to the doctor's office and I took my oldest son with me because. And this made me really excited about the pregnancy. When I told my oldest I was pregnant, he was through the moon. He'd been wanting a younger. He'd been begging me for a younger sibling. He had one, but he wanted another one.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:39] Specifically.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:06:39] He wanted a baby sister so badly. There's not a lot of girls in the Johnson family. So I told him, forget about it, kid. Not gonna happen, you know? So he was ecstatic. So for my first ultrasound appointment, I invited my son to come with me, which was really exciting.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:06:56] And we get there, I'm super nervous. We're with the ultrasound tech. My son is like beside me, just like so excited, and I'm like freaking out. The ultrasound tech company comes in. She was, no muss, no fuss, I mean, zero conversation. She got in there and, like, did her business. And I was like, okay, cool. And then I'm seeing stuff on the screen and I'm like, there's my ovaries, I think, you know, like, I don't know what I'm seeing. And then I noticed that the ultrasound tech is not talking.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:07:21] And it was in this moment. She's rubbing this wand over my belly. My son's so excited. I'm trying to play it cool. Cause I don't want him to be worried, But I'm thinking in my head, oh, my gosh, she's not finding anything. She's not finding a heartbeat. And it was in that moment that I realized, I want this baby so, so badly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:07:40] Anyway, sorry, y' all will see why this is emotional later. But she wrote something on her screen and I glanced at it and I thought it said two. And then I looked at her and she looked back at me and she just went like this. And I said, are you telling me that I'm carrying twins?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:07:59] And she said, yeah. And my son just woo hooed. He jumped up, he started screaming, he was so excited. I just started bawling. Not because I was sad, not because I was freaked out, but because I was so happy. And that feeling surprised me because I had been so stressed out.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:08:23] And I just knew I was like, this situation is just so crazy not to be a full on miracle. Like, I never should have gotten pregnant with a baby to begin with. I did, and now it's twins. And then I found out later that they were identical twin girls. And I was just through the moon, just so excited. I had always wanted.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:08:50] I had always wanted girls and not to diminish my boys, but. And then my son also wanted baby sister so badly. So it was just really, really special. I came home and told David my son and I decided to go and buy matching twin outfits at the store. We came home, gave them the present. He opened it and then he looked at the outfits and he realized it was twins. And he was shocked. And then it was in that moment that I approached him later and I Said, you know, I can't do this by myself self. And he said, you will not have to. I'm here however, you need me every step of the way.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:32] So, yeah, that story.

John Dehlin [02:09:36] So how did that develop?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:09:38] So twin pregnancy. I don't know how much our listeners know about twin pregnancy. It's no joke if you are pregnant with twins or more than twins. It's totally, totally crazy. It was a very difficult pregnancy. You're double everything, double exhausted, double nauseous, double in pain, double discomfort, all the things. It was a very difficult pregnancy. My girls were what they call mono di. What that means, and it's important to the story later, is that they both had their own little sacks. So their own little homes that they lived in. But they shared a placenta, they shared a food source. Their umbilical cords were both connected to the same placenta. Okay, so it's a more high risk pregnancy. It's not the most high risk pregnancy, but it's one of the more high risk pregnancy.

John Dehlin [02:10:27] For tests, ideally, they both have their own placentas. Okay.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:10:30] Yeah. And there's lots of reasons for this. When two babies share a placenta, if anything happens to one of the babies in utero, the other baby is also affected. So, so that's super high concern. And then also babies that share a placenta, there's just a lot of things that they look out for that they kind of expect could be a complication. So they told me this from the beginning. The minute you find out you're pregnant with twins, you learn all this scary information. And it's also a very different type of pregnancy in reference to how they monitor you. So right around 20 weeks, I started being monitored every two weeks, getting two to four hour long ultra ultrasounds done. Wow, Difficult for work.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:11] That's right. Yeah, I can imagine.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:11:14] So a lot of I ended up being paid a lot less by the time I had my girls because I had to take so many days off because of this high risk pregnancy. So then at about 26 weeks, my, my MFM is what they're called, they monitor maternal fetal medicine. Dr. They monitor your babies.

Isabelle's Heart Defect and Fight for Life

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:11:41] They were doing a really in depth ultrasound and they flagged one of the twins as maybe having an issue. So my twin, and I'll go ahead and name them because it's just easier. The twin, Alaina, who's what we call twin A, she was the twin that technically formed first Elena. Elena looked normal. She just checked out fine. Everything seemed fine. But twin B, which is our Isabel, our Izzy B, she flagged for potentially having a congenital heart defect.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:12:12] So then, through other specialists, we were referred to a specialist children's hospital, Dell Children's in Austin, which is a fabulous, fabulous children's hospital. They actually have one of the best heart centers in the world.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:26] Wow.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:12:27] And it's just developed about five years ago, they referred us to there, and they confirmed that she did have a congenital heart defect and that they were gonna closely monitor her until she was born. So that kind of set us on a whole new path as to what this birth was gonna look like.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:12:47] And it became less about, you know, preparing for a birth of your child and going home and more about how do we help this. This child survive? Step one was helping her survive in utero, because for a minute there, it looked like she wasn't growing. And as I said before, if she had passed in utero, Elena would have most likely also passed and also potentially myself.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:13:18] The options as what to what we could do if that were to happen were very limited, especially in Texas. And so they were monitoring me really closely. Thankfully, Isabel started growing really well, and they were not nervous that she would pass in utero. So then we just had to prepare for what it was going to be like once she was born.

John Dehlin [02:13:44] And it took a tragic turn.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:13:47] Yes. So first, I want to talk a little bit about how. What it is to have a baby who's being born with a severe medical issue, because I think it's different than what people think. So my girls were born on Christmas Day. So December 25th of 2023, my Christmas miracles.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:14:07] And Elena came out perfectly great. They were by C section. And then Isabelle was taken immediately to be put on what they call the bubbler and to be taken into surgery. And I knew this beforehand. They had prepped us all really, really well with what it was gonna look like. But what we knew was that we were not going to be able to hold her and that she was going to be intubated immediately, for those who don't know, through the throat or. Oh, yeah, she was not going to be able to breathe on her own, and we knew this. So intubation. Intubation, if anyone doesn't know, is a tube that's put down your throat and it helps you breathe.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:14:46] It's given for people sometimes in surgeries. Very rarely do people have to be intubated while they're awake for long term. Those who are. It's very, very uncomfortable. But in the medical world with infants, it's not rare to see, like, a heart baby like Isabel be intubated. From birth.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:03] Okay.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:15:04] But this is what the intubation meant. Because a lot of my friends were confused about this when they knew that I had birth to Isabel. They thought she was in the nicu. And I was going there and kind of, like, holding her and then, like, putting her back on a bed. It was not like that at all.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:15:18] She was intubated. That tube could not be moved from her. And if it was, she could have passed away. And we were fighting for her life. The goal was to get her heart strong enough to where she could breathe on her own. And that required lots of different things. So that intubation tube had to stay intact, so she had to stay on bed, and I couldn't hold her.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:15:39] That was really hard. Because when you have a baby, one of the things they tell you about that's so important is the touch, the skin to skin. And I had that with Alaina, and I couldn't have it with Isabel. And that was just tragic. It was tragic not just for me, but I was extremely worried about Isabel, because a big reason they want the skin to skin is in just for the health of the mother. It's especially for the health of the baby. And so I knew that emotionally, that there was just no way she was thriving without. I saw the way that Alayna was thriving by being with me all the time.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:16:17] And Isabel was on a bed with all these things hooked up to her, and she was intubated. So her hospital stay was a little over four months. And we did that for four months. For four months.

John Dehlin [02:16:33] She was intubated for four months. You couldn't hold her for four months.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:16:37] We could hold her after two months, but the holding was. You can't really see it on camera, but, like, you couldn't move that tube. It took three different people to transfer her to bed to me. And they had to do it in such a way to where her tube would stay intact. So you had to be very careful. Like I'm trying to show on camera, but it's like you had to hold her very stiffly. You know, there was no, like, bringing up to here. There was no rocking and that kind of thing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:17:01] We were with her, and every day, sometimes David and I would kind of take each other's place. I was pretty much there with her 100% of the time. We live 45 minutes away from the hospital, so we drive up every day. Of course, we have our other children we were caring for. So we'd go home at night, we would take care of them, and then I would take the Baby in the morning, after I dropped the boys off for school. And I would be with Izzy as long as I could. And since I couldn't hold her most of the time, and even when I could, it was just very static.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:17:29] I just got really creative in all the other things that I wanted to do for her. I sang to her a lot, and the hospital helped me kind of know what I could and should do. I would hold her hands and her feet. I would get my face, like, right up to her face as much as I could. And I would just try to be this presence for her. I was hoping she was feeling that I was there. I tried. When the girls were both young, I would put Elena in her bed, which was always very scary because the intubation tube was there. But we would swaddle her up really good.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:18:01] And the nurses were so helpful, too. Anything that they allowed me to do for Isabel, I would like. At first, I wasn't allowed to change her diapers because she was just so fragile. And then I got to where I could change her diapers. And I will tell you, it has never been more of a blessing to change a baby's diaper than to change hers. Like, I would fight the nurses to change them. If they came in, I'd say, no, no, no. I'm doing it. It. You know, I could give her sponge baths and things like that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:18:30] And we did that for four months, and we were fighting for her life. And then about at the end of April, I came to see her one day, and I could just tell that something was different. Isabelle at this point, had had three surgeries, and each time I had kind of seen, like, a fight in her.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:18:53] And this time I showed up, she was really swollen, and I was just looking in her eyes, and I could just. It was the first time I looked at her and thought, oh, you're so tired. Like, you're so tired. She looked really sick. She looked really tired. The doctors were very worried.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:19:10] They were discussing in a corner. And then one of the doctors informed me that her liver, specifically, was looking really bad. And they think that she was an organ failure. So what that meant was that we had two choices.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:19:29] The first choice was that we could just let things happen naturally. And most likely they said that she would pass from a cardiac event, which could be painful if unplanned, and that she could pass when we were not there.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:19:46] I asked them that when they expected that, like, her lifespan to be. And they said no more than two weeks. So then the second option was for us to Plan to remove her life support.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:01] Wow. So sorry.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:20:08] And that was terrible decision to make as a parent. Thankfully, the palliative care team worked with us. They work with so many families that go through this, and they gave us the support that we needed in weighing out this decision.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:20:27] And we decided that we wanted to remove life support and control her end of life so that she wouldn't pass when the niece was of pain. She'd also never been outside. And so the hospital helped us plan her end of life to be outside.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:20:50] And so we had planned it out. It was about two weeks from the time they let us know to when we planned it. So for those next two weeks were really, really crucial for me and David to spend all the time with her. That was the first time I started leaving Elena, when I went to the.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:21:07] When I went to the hospital, because I just wanted to be with Isabel. I wanted to spend all my time with her. And I was pretty much there 24, seven for two weeks. And I had so many moments where I thought, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do this. Like, I can't do this. Mm.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:21:31] But I had this realization that Izzy was about to go through this really scary thing that none of us had done, and I was her support system. So I thought maybe the most. The best thing you could give her as a mom is just guiding her through that really hard moment as lovingly as you can.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:22:02] And so that is what we decided to do. And so on May 7th, Izzy passed in my arms. More props to David, because he gave me that gift of being able to hold her. It's important to note that her end of life was the first time that she was not in intubated.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:22:25] So it was the first time she could breathe on her own, which was only for a few minutes. And it was the first time I could hold her in the way that I wanted to hold her. So I got to, like, hold her up here by my face, and I got to kiss on her and just hold a baby in the way that you would want to. To comfort them, and I got to do that. So her last day of life. Life as the saddest day of my life. But it was also so happy because I got to finally hold my baby.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:59] Yeah. Yeah. It feels like such a. One of those moments where, you know. Because in. In a sense, you were able to. To be a mother in the way you fully wanted to. To be a mother. And it was as she was leaving.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:23:22] Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it. I was actually thinking about this last night, and I was dissecting that a little bit. Something that was difficult about the hospital stay. And I think it's important to voice this because there's mothers right now who are going through it with their children. That was a huge wake up call for me with Izzy in the cardiac unit. She wasn't the only baby there.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:42] Right. There's a whole lot. She was a world that is going on while we're living our lives. Right?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:23:47] Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think part of what's so hard is you can't mother your baby the way that you want to. You know, I wasn't nursing her, I wasn't feeding her in any sort of way. I wasn't holding her. And so trying to just make sure that she was feeling that connection with me so that she could be connected, comforted was very, very stressful.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:12] Oh, I can imagine. Yep. And that being out of your control.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:24:19] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:19] And it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:24:20] And it absolutely was out of my control. When we start talking about, you know, coming from our faith background, while Izzy was in the hospital, I was juggling a lot of different personalities. Right. So many people were invested in her, her well being. My parents, David's parents, siblings and friends. And a lot of these people are still fully believing members. And so they had different opinions as to how we should approach certain things. For instance, my dad really wanted her to have a blessing from priesthood holders. And I told her him, no, absolutely not. So I did refuse that priesthood blessing for her.

John Dehlin [02:25:17] For those who've never been a parent before, you know, it's probably hard to imagine what it's like to be a parent, but theoretically, one might think, oh, well, you know, you're only with her for a matter of months. Months. You can't even possibly bond to a child in four months like you could to a kid who is 5 years old or 10 years old or 20 years old or 30 years old. Can you talk about what type of bond you had with Izzy and.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:25:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a really, really good point. And honestly, before I had kids and had gone through this experience, I might have had some of the same ideas. The pregnancy, we have to go back to the pregnancy. Twin pregnancy is killer. We were in survival mode, me and the girls together, just surviving. My oldest twin, Alayna, was like, so chill in the pregnancy. She just, like, hung out in my pelvis area and, like, didn't give me any trouble. But me and Izzy were, like, in it. We were bonded. I felt her all of the time. We called her busy. Izzy and it was kind of a joke because I had to go in for a lot of ultrasounds, and it was important that she stay still so they image her to try to provide her with the care that we needed.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:26:34] And no, girlfriend was not about it. She moved around all the time. It was a joke between the nurses and a joke between me. And I just felt very bonded and connected to her personality in reference to being in the hospital after. So it's. I cannot, like, express enough the fact that you're feeling your baby all the time. And besides the fact that you're feeling your baby all the time, there's just something about the hormones when you're pregnant is you're thinking about them all of the time. I thought about the girls all the time. I thought about Isabel all of the time. And when she was born, that didn't stop.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:27:16] Even when I wasn't with her, I was thinking about. About her all of the time. When they are really young, I'm very lucky that she lived to be four months, because when they're really young, they're just figuring out the world. They come in blind as a bat.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:27:33] They can't hear very well. Newborns have no idea what's going on. And so they don't necessarily emit a huge amount of personality, but right around three or four months, they do. And my Isabel was really fun. She was feisty.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:27:49] She'd let you know when she didn't like something, but she was really sweet. I have this really beautiful video, if anybody wants to go to my Instagram. There is a video of her on there, and I shared it because it's just so beautiful. It's one of the times we were kind of giving her a sponge bath and massaging her head. She really loved it. And she's just looking up and you can see this little twinkle in her eyes. And a mom knows what that means. And it means that they're happy and they love you and they're sweet.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:28:22] And she would give us that look often in the last month of her life, and especially when we held her. The best thing about the last two weeks of her life was that we got to hold her as much as we wanted, which was amazing. And she loved it. She would put up a fight anytime we'd put her back in the bed. And when I say put up a fight, that looks different for a child like Isabel, it doesn't mean kicking and thrashing and screaming. She actually couldn't cry because she's intubated, but there's monitors on the side of her, and she has numbers, and if those numbers go up, you know, it's bad.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:28:54] And if they go down, it's fine. And anytime you'd put her down, her numbers would beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And we'd have to settle her down a little bit. So she wanted to be held by us all of the time. That bond was definitely there. They also were able to lessen some of her medication and so more of her personality was able to shine. So. Yeah, I can't explain why the bond's there, but it just is. And it's there forever.

Margi Dehlin [02:29:20] Yeah. I love that you brought out this idea of, you know, bonding before she was born. I think, you know, hey, pregnancy's different for everyone. Right. There are very individual experiences, and for many, it's really, really physically and psychologically difficult. But I do, you know, I do feel toward my children this idea of like, I knew you before you met the world. Like we had our time, you know, where it was really just me and you. And so I love that you, you brought that out because I do think there's, there can be bonding there, there can be getting to know a personality there, that. And so anyway, I really appreciate you, you kind of talking about that and talking about all this and being willing to relive it for us as part of your story. Story. Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:30:29] Well, I think. Thank you for saying that. That's really kind. I think my motivation, because I've questioned my purpose a lot since everything happened with Isabelle. And it's what I said before. I mean, there's families right. Right now all over the world that are going through this. It's been very eye openening and they're not alone. Like, I don't want anyone to ever feel like they are alone. Alone. This is the worst thing that could happen to somebody. But there is life after. I don't want anyone to feel hopeless.

John Dehlin [02:31:03] Yeah. And I, I don't want this question to seem indelicate, but I'm just trying to empathize. And I can't imagine loving this baby. Like, I would just, I think I would want the baby to pass than be forced to make the decision or to confront making the decision to consciously de. Intubate or whatever it is and have the baby pass consciously. Because then it would have been my decision that led to that. But, but clearly it was an intentional decision on your part. But I, I, I'm suffocating just thinking about making that decision.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:31:56] Yeah, absolutely. Well, and what you voiced is what a lot of People feel inside and maybe don't always voice. Truly. I thought about that, too. I remember before I ever had the girls, I used to be very. A very nervous mother. Like, I would check the doors a million times before I go to bed because my greatest fear was that I would do something that would lead to my child getting hurt. Like, I left the stove on or something like that, and I would be the reason.

Facing the Decision to Let Isabelle Go

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:32:24] Yeah. How do you live with being the reason? Right. And that's exactly what the hospital was asking us if we wanted to do. Do you want to let nature take its course? Course. Or do you want to make the decision to control end of life? It was very scary, for sure, being that person, to say, this is the day and time. But I said it before, and I'll go ahead and repeat it because it bears repeating, especially if anybody else is out there having to make this decision, which is totally possible.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:32:56] What made me lean towards it was twofold. First of all, it was a reality. It was a reality that Izzy was gonna pass, like, zero question. And we. I mean, we'd done all the things. We haven't talked in depth about how crazy her situation was. Her heart defect was extreme.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:33:16] There was no way she's gonna. Everyone would always say, well, can't she just get a heart transplant? Not easy. And also, she never even would have been a candidate. Like, the heart doctors let us know that she's not a candidate. We don't feel like it would be successful. So she was always gonna have to live with the heart she had. And that wasn't the only issue.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:33:33] So when they told us her organs were failing, I mean, we knew it. And like I said, I saw it in her change of demeanor. We knew her end of life was near. And so what pushed me towards controlling it is, like, what I said. The only thing that would be worse than me being there, giving her the gift of love and support would be her having to pass painfully without that love and support.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:33:58] So I always would have thought exactly kind of like what you said. But it actually gave me a lot of courage in making that decision. That. That was. That was the gift of motherhood that I could give her. That was the way I could be her mom, which seems so reverse. I know. But it was the only thing that I could give her, and I wasn't going to leave her alone.

John Dehlin [02:34:18] She could have passed while you were sleeping at night or at soccer practice with your kids or whatever.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:34:23] Yes. And, I mean, she could have passed any time in the whole four months. She had three different Surgeries. Every time she went back for one of those surgeries, we had to sign a thing that said she might not make it. And those were always hard. Those days were always hard. And then she made it through every time.

Margi Dehlin [02:34:39] That's right.

John Dehlin [02:34:39] So those are big. Those are big decisions. So those are big moments. So thank you again, like Margi said, for being willing to share.

Margi Dehlin [02:34:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:48] Really quickly tying, just tying back to Mormonism a bit. By this point, y' all had lost your Mormon faith. And I think I remember reading your outline that there were several people offering to give baby blessings to Izzy. And you know, there's a part of me, part of my brain that's like, yeah, whatever, maybe it'll work. Like, at least, at least allow it in case, you know. But then I'm thinking about how Margi might feel about that sort of thing with her perspective now. And. And sometimes those. It could be a violent reaction of no, thank you. And so what was it like to navigate those well intended offers for priesthood blessings?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:35:32] Oh, my goodness.

John Dehlin [02:35:32] Or any other things ward members or believing family members might say before she passed?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:35:38] For sure. And emphasis on well attended, because if any of my Mormon friends are listening, all of the support I had from my friends, Mormon and not, was all beautiful and always well intended and always taken that way, for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:35:52] And so many of my Mormon, fully believing Mormon friends stepped up to the plate and were awesome. And so many of my friends who've never been Mormon or those who've exited the church, all the things, but a couple of things. So a couple of years ago, my brother got in a terrible accident when my parents were living in England. They lived there for a year, fun and even. And he's not a member of the church anymore or not active. And while he was in the hospital, he was really unable to voice wants and desires for a little bit. My dad had called, unbeknownst to all of us, had called church members to come and give him a blessing, didn't inform us.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:36:32] And they just showed up at the hospital when me and my other brother were there, kind of looking after him. And I remember stopping them in the hall and saying, hold on. Like, they, they were two of our very good family friends. So I was very happy they were here to see my brother. But I said, hold on, like, I don't know that he wants this. And so I was just like, just give me. Just like, give me a second. I feel very important, it very important that he should consent. And so I went in there and asked him. I think he thought I was a little silly.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:37:00] He's like, yeah, that's fine. They can come in and do their thing. And I'm like, great. But it's interesting that you brought that up, because I did feel, and I felt this way also in childhood, that so many times I was blessed or things were done to me kind of without consent.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:14] Right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:37:16] So when it came to Izzy, I was surprised to feel that I had no ties to the church in my heart or my mind. None. I wondered, and I think many friends also wondered this.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:28] They.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:37:28] They kind of expressed this to me. They wondered if I would return to my faith because of this. It did absolutely the opposite. It actually confirmed for me that I was good. I was good. I didn't feel the need. I didn't feel like it was going to benefit my life or Izzy's life in any way. I actually officially wrote to resign my membership while she was in the hospital, because I was like, this is it.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:51] Yes.

Grieving Without Faith After Losing Izzy

John Dehlin [02:37:52] So explain that, because there's the saying, there's no atheists in foxholes, that when you're facing death, or in this case, death of a child, that's when you're gonna be even neurologically or psychologically most inclined to want to cling to belief just as a coping mechanism.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:38:07] Of course. Yes. And I would have thought that's how I'd react. And don't get me wrong, the struggle was there. It's still there. And we can talk more about that later. In reference to where I feel like Izzy is or afterlife or things like that, I have a few experiences, but. But, yeah, the opposite was true. And before. For the first year after my faith crisis, I remember. Or when I had exited the church, I kind of remember still feeling a tiny tinge of fear in the back of my mind, like, maybe I made the wrong choice, and I just, you know, whatever. I remember when I got, like, my helix piercing in my ear, I was, like, freaking out. I was like, having Mormon hell Dream, you know, And I was like, how is this still living with me?

John Dehlin [02:38:49] The Spooky Mormon Hell Dream.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:38:50] Yes, the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And this was years after. So it just kind of lives in the back.

Margi Dehlin [02:38:56] That's right. And when you're vulnerable. When you're oftentimes. When you're vulnerable or then the conditioning kicks in.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:39:04] Exactly. And so I really thought that I was going to experience a lot of that, and I did not. And that was surprising, and I can't tell you why. I just felt kind of resolved in my outlook on life at that point.

Margi Dehlin [02:39:17] Point.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:39:18] If Izzy taught me anything, it was to just really value the life. That we have to stop focusing on what will and instead focus on what is. That's literally the opposite of what they teach you in the church, right? Eat, drink and be merry. And here I am telling you, eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow you might die. You know, like, eat, drink and be merry. Like, I soaked in every single minute I had with my child because I knew that any minute could be the last. And because of that, every minute was precious. And I didn't really think too much about what was gonna happen after.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:39:49] When the blessings were offered, I said no because of what I said before. I was resigned to feel good about that. This was not gonna be helpful. But more importantly, I felt very protective of Izzy. Like, there was no way for her to consent.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:40:06] She was also very sensitive to touch. She had things hooked up to all over her body. She had that tube in her. There would be times when I would touch her and she would freak out and I would know, okay, you don't want that right now because you might be uncomfortable. I was not going to let some two random men come into her hospital room and put their hands on her head when they don't know her and she's not familiar with them. I was just so protective of her. That was not going to happen. And I know that those men would have been well intentioned, no question, but it wasn't going to happen.

John Dehlin [02:40:35] And for judgy Mormons out there, just think about, what does it say about your God if they. They won't. If he won't bless Izzy of his own accord, if he's got blessings to give that he's going to withhold the healing of Izzy. If the right two men don't come at the right time and say the right words and put the right oil on her, versus him just getting off his celestial rear end and healing her of his own accord.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:41:01] Right, Exactly.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:02] Or allowing a mother's power to do it.

John Dehlin [02:41:05] Or even better. Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:41:06] Oh, my gosh, Margi, like, nail on the head. Because I wrote about this a little bit in her outline and I'm always getting judged by my dad about, like, man hating. I don't hate men, so let's, like, put that out there.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:18] I do not.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:41:19] I actually love men. I think men are beautiful and amazing people. But I am very, like, woman empowered these days. And when I found out I was having two girls, it became like, whew. Through the roof. Right? And it's important to mention that during Izzy's little four months that she had here her the most important people in her life beside who was there like basically every day. Except when he was working. He was there as much as he could be. But besides David, the most influential people in her life were absolutely women. Like, out of the question. It was me. It was her twin sister.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:41:54] Like her twin sister and her were very bonded. They had spent the whole pregnancy together. Every time Alayna was there, Izzy's vitals would be really positive. She definitely noticed that she was there. And then my mom would come all the time as well. And on top of that, my mother in law, Izzy's other grandmother was there.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:42:12] And those women went out of their way to make sure that they were there for her. And I hate to say it, but the men in her life did not. And I can't tell you why they made the choice not to be there with her as much.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:42:25] But her power was really fueled by women. The love brought to her room, the support brought to her room was mostly powered by women.

John Dehlin [02:42:36] Were you tempted to say a prayer to heal her?

Margi Dehlin [02:42:39] So I did.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:42:41] I don't really pray these days, but I did start meditating for my own personal health. And I just, especially at the very beginning when I could like, I could barely even touch her because she was so uncomfortable. So there would be times I'd go in there, I'd just like barely be holding her finger. And so I would think, well, what? How can I make her feel that I'm here? And I would just want to be the most positive energy. So I would try very much to mess with, meditate and think positively and just bring like joy and a lack of anxiety. Cause I'm a very anxious person into the room. And over time I felt like that meditation did almost turn into a type of prayer.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:22] I don't.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:43:22] I didn't know in reference to my belief system. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I know that there's a God. I don't. But I'm not against it. There could be. So it's not that I was meditating or praying to something, but I was definitely, definitely having a lot of introspection during that time.

John Dehlin [02:43:41] I'm mindful of the times on my mission where I was asked to say give some healing blessing. I always felt inadequate, it always felt awkward. And then I'd give the blessing. And I never had any idea that it actually would do anything. And there's something so beautiful and powerful about having. I don't Know if it's the faith, but the wisdom to just let it be as the mom, let it be what it's going to be. And like you said, just love every minute you have with Izzy, for sure.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:44:12] And, I mean, there were times, you know, where I would get into spaces where I would just be like, well, I'm going to wish her better. And it didn't work. And then you had to grapple with the fact that it didn't work. It's interesting that you say that, because I remember there was a moment a couple years ago where it dawned on me that men who have the priesthood don't feel the spirit any differently than women.

John Dehlin [02:44:30] No, they don't.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:44:30] They don't feel any other sort of, like, power or voice. Like it's the same. I remember. But growing up, I really did think it was different. And I had to ask David, I had to say, like, well, what do you hear in your head when. Blah, blah, blah, so and so happens when you give a blessing or whatever. And he told me, and I'm like, well, that's the exact same as me.

John Dehlin [02:44:46] Yeah, you make shit up.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:44:47] Yeah, right, exactly.

John Dehlin [02:44:49] So you wonder what's gonna happen.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:44:52] Right. And so to your point, and to Margi's point, I truly didn't feel. Feel like any stranger coming into her room was gonna do more for her than what was already be done for her by the people who loved her the absolute most.

John Dehlin [02:45:05] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [02:45:06] And I think there's this moment that many of us will find ourselves because death is part of life. Right. Where how would I express it? It's kind of like you can feel the reality to turn where your hopes are checked and you're getting data from experts or people who know. Yeah. And there's that temptation to slip out of reality, to slip into a different space of hope or desperation or just draw it out and just. And these are all tricky, tricky places to be. I don't mean to, like, oversimplify, but having been in a situation. Situation with someone who's dying and, you know, that's where this is going, there are things that I think become very clear or can.

Margi Dehlin [02:45:59] In those moments where it's like you. You're weighing whether to fight or not to fight, and what's the cost to the person that you're asking to do the fighting? And is it for you or is it for. For them?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:46:14] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:46:15] And then also, once you are fully, you know, accepting, like you said, reality, this. This is real, you know, then how do I engage with what is before me in real Love for this person. Like, how can I use this time then? If this is where we're headed, how do I want to show up? How do I want to love? So I just leave it all.

Margi Dehlin [02:46:42] It's all out there. I've given everything I can with what's left with this person here, you know, and that's what I feel from you, is I feel, even when you're talking about it, that it. You hit a moment where on. In some way it became clear, you know, and what. What emerged from you, that clarity of what is most important, you know, to Izzy. And we talked about you having that moment to mother, but Izzy got to feel you mother, too, before she left this world, you know, Anyway, I just really feel that from you and the courage in these moments that we have to actually face what is. And we can talk about death all day. We can talk. Talk about. But until you witness someone's last breath.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:47:37] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:37] You know, and. And what that means and what you allow it to mean for you moving forward. It can be very different than what you think, you know.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:47:49] Most definitely. Most definitely. And I. I say a lot now, like, life. Life is the great teacher. I'm learning all the time. This is been the greatest teaching experience of my life thus far. It's taught me to become comfortable with

Margi Dehlin [02:48:04] death

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:48:07] because it's part of the life experience. It's something I wish actually people would talk about more with comfort. Especially in, like, Western society, we really struggle. Like, it's so feared and. But it's like what you said, like, when death is a reality, how do you show up and just show love and respect, the fact that this is part of life, and how do you handle it gracefully? I had a really interesting experience. This was after Izzy had passed.

Margi Dehlin [02:48:34] And I.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:48:35] One of the things I struggled with was if we should have done as many surgeries as we did to her, because we were just fighting so hard to save her. I mean, we were. She's gonna live, you know, for a long time.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:48:47] And I look back and I'm like, man. And, you know, those were so uncomfortable for her. But we did that. And, you know, she lived as long as she could, and I'm glad we had her for as long as we could. But I was just really fighting to figure out how I could have done things different. I was bargaining. That's what I was doing. That's what part of the grief cycle.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:49:04] I was bargaining. Even after she passed, Even after it was a reality. Yes. That she was gone. I was still bargaining in my brain, like, how Could I have done this differently? Or if I do this, could this happen? And then a friend of mine, she lost her 14 year old daughter right around the same time as Izzy passed from a cancer struggle.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:49:23] And I followed along with her story closely because I was feeling it very strongly. And I got to speak to this little girl's grandma who was very much involved in her life, and she told me a little bit about her. And because this little girl was 14, she got to verbalize things and her mom told her or her grandmother told me that this girl said, I'm not scared to die.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:49:49] I just don't want to be in pain anymore. That really helped heal me a little bit because I realized that Izzy had really led quite a painful life. And so even though you don't want to think of death as a good thing, I wish with all my might that she was still here. If I could give my own life for her, I would do it in a second. But she was in a lot of pain and it helped me feel peace about her time of ending and the way it happened.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:20] That's right, yeah. Yeah, I think that. And oftentimes I think. And this is tricky and it's complicated and there's. I don't want to oversimplify at all, but this is why it's so difficult in weighing. There's kind of an assumption that the worst thing is death. The worst thing is. But when you witness suffering or we have questions of quality of life over just, you know, years and years of someone and what it takes to have them live, and that is where it gets really complicated. Complicated is suffering is real. And sometimes, you know, that death option, it becomes very clear that death is not the worst thing, you know, and that's tricky. And it's individual and it's, you know, very complicated within families, you know, talking all that out, but just really hearing what you're saying, you know, witnessing high level levels of suffering. Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:51:29] Well, and something that you said reminded me, you know, the truth is, like, there's so much about this death experience we don't know and we do not understand, and we're not gonna understand it. And it requires finding comfort in not knowing. Like in that uncomfortable space of not knowing. One of the greatest lessons I've learned since leaving Mormonism is trying to find comfort and being okay with not knowing. I don't know what death is like. I don't know where Izzy is. I don't know what she's experiencing. I can hope for so many things, but I don't Know, And I have to find comfort in that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:52:08] If someone were to ask me, well, how do you find comfort? That I go back to just being grateful for the time that we did have, the good experiences that we did have. I can't stress that enough because Izzy just being, being like, just being born and being my daughter was enough. Like that was enough because she was this whole little person and her life had significance. It was four month life. It was short, but it was significant.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:52:33] And that to me means everything. And so when I struggle with the fact that I don't know what's going to happen, I go back to remembering how grateful I am that I got to know her and how much I appreciate her life.

John Dehlin [02:52:50] You list in your outline, I think several things that, well intended Mormons would say to you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:52:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:53:00] Do you want to address any of those just as a way to coach people?

Margi Dehlin [02:53:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:53:04] For less helpful and maybe more helpful. More helpful things to say or not say.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:53:11] Absolutely. And thank you for bringing it up because it's a whole reason I'm here is to. If you were to ask me why did you choose to do Mormon stories, I would say it's for education to help people know how to handle like this grief experience, most especially if you're grief adjacent and then also support. So for those going through it to know that you're not alone, that you're here, that I'm here for you. Okay. So a lot of things that people would say and of course always well intended.

John Dehlin [02:53:41] Do you want me to read each one?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:53:42] Yes, read each one. Okay.

Navigating Unhelpful Religious Condolences

John Dehlin [02:53:43] The first one you wrote is, I don't know how someone could handle this without faith.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:53:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:53:48] Oh, gosh, already I'm just like cringing.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:53:52] Yes. So I don't know how someone could handle this without faith. I remember hearing that and thinking, well, I guess I don't have faith that I'm handling it. So I didn't know how to respond. It put me in this awkward situation of saying, well, I don't know. But what I would say to that person is instead of saying that, and my answer is going to be the same for probably all of these, but instead of saying something like that, instead just saying, I'm here for you, like, I love you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:54:27] Do you want to talk? So just being a space of support and comfort for that person's own experiences and not putting assumptions on them. The assumption being like, I don't think you're handling it well because. Because you're not faithful. Or maybe you were. Yes. If you were faithful, your problems could be Solved. Which is also, I cannot express, like, more fervently. Is not true. There are plenty of people who have faith, who really struggle in grief.

John Dehlin [02:54:53] Absolutely.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:54:54] And that's okay. And that is normal.

John Dehlin [02:54:55] Sometimes more so.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:54:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:54:57] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:54:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:54:58] Okay. The second thing you wrote was, we know she's still here. Meaning after she's passed. Yes, we know she's still with us. Or I've even had people go, they came to me in a dream to tell you that they're doing okay.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:55:12] Right. That one is harder for me to handle. Because I would like for nothing more than to sit here and tell you that I know where my daughter is. I can feel her, and I feel her presence. The truth is, I don't really feel that. And I remember when she died, I felt very strong, strongly, that she was gone,

John Dehlin [02:55:38] gone, gone, gone, gone.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:55:40] And there, with the exception of one thing. And I will tell this experience. And it's weird, and I can't explain it. And it's feeling comfort in the unknown. Like, I can't explain it. After we brought her back from the garden, I carried her back. They had wheeled me out with her, and they wanted to wheel me back to the room. And I said, no, I want to carry my daughter. And she had already passed at this point, so I carried her. And her body was beautiful because this was the first time she got to be unhooked from all the things, and I got to see her full face.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:56:08] So it was, like, such a treat to be able to take her back to her room and wash her and dress her. She had never been in clothes. She'd only ever been in a diaper and blankets because they needed to have access to her body.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:56:23] So that was such a beautiful gift to be able to do. And I remember looking at her and thinking, she looks so cute and so perfect. After we washed her and we dressed her, and the nurse said, you need to take a picture. And I said, I'm not. That's morbid. And she said, do it. Take a picture. And I did. And I'm so happy I have that picture. So for anyone who thinks. Who can't understand why moms do that, I'll tell you, it's because it's the only picture I have of her where she's just her.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:56:56] And there's so many moms that the only pictures they have of their baby is postmortem. And so those pictures are really important. But I had this moment after we addressed her and we finally had to leave the hospital.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:57:05] That moment was the worst moment, leaving Knowing we weren't coming back because she was gone. I heard a voice behind. This is gonna sound like a testimony meeting, so just buckle up, everybody. I heard a voice behind me as if it real person. The voice was not the voice of a baby or a grown woman. It sounded like a little girl. And the voice said, mom, you're gonna be happy again. And I even turned around because I thought someone was behind me. And then I realized it was just a voice.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:57:38] And I was like, that is weird. And I haven't read into it at all. I don't know what it was. I don't know what it means. It's just that that voice said it. And in that moment I thought, I don't see how that's possible.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:57:56] But since then, over the months, I see that it is possible to find happiness and moments of joy, even after grief like that. And so I'm happy I had that experience. But outside of that, I don't feel. I don't feel an Isabel presence.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:58:14] And so when people say that, it's very difficult because then I have to re question myself, like. Like, should I be feeling that? You know, it can make me a little angry when people say it because I'm like, you don't know. Like, stop telling me what you know. You don't know. You're not her mom.

Margi Dehlin [02:58:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:35] So a few other things you had wrote. I'll just read them all. We know she's in a better place. These are things not to say. Yes, we know she's in a better place Place. Aren't you grateful Families can be together forever.

Margi Dehlin [02:58:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:48] And this isn't goodbye, it's see you later.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:58:51] Right. All of those things are a go to that people say. Right. Well intended out of comfort. But they are kind of like the worst thing you could say. We know she's in a better place. That's the worst. Because it's like her best place that she could ever be is with me. Right.

John Dehlin [02:59:05] Yeah. What's a better place?

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:59:06] What's a better place? And so it's really hard to hear that when you're grieving and you're feeling that loss. That's not necessarily what you want to hear. I think some people find comfort in things like that, but you don't want to just throw that out to somebody who is grieving. The whole families can be together forever. Well, that's not my faith system anymore.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:59:24] And I don't know if I believe that. So sometimes statements like that can actually make me feel really sad. So again, the best thing you can say to somebody what happens when you hear somebody's story. Story. You just feel in a space of awkwardness where you don't know what to say and you want to say something. For so many people, it's very easy to fall back on statements like this. But really what you need to do is just hold space for that person, give them a moment, say you're there for them, say that you support them. They may not even react well to you saying that in that moment.

Jennie Latham Johnson [02:59:58] But if you keep showing up for them, you keep supporting them, you keep showing them love, you keep just being an open space for them to talk about. If they need it, they'll remember it, and it'll mean the world to them in the end.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:00:10] So the last part that I want to make sure we get to does emerge from that voice you heard. Can you be happy again and can you talk us through? I know you have strong feelings about the stages of grief and what it means to grieve and how many, maybe sometimes even religious faith can prevent proper grieving and then healing. So let's make sure you have all the time you want to talk about your grieving and healing processes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:00:45] Yeah. It's important to note that everybody grieves differently. I can't explain that as to why. It just depends on the person. And there are certain circumstances and what they were going through. For me with Izzy, I had a whole pregnancy almost and four months to kind of be prepared for her passing, because as soon as we knew that she had a congenital heart defect, we were preparing that it was possible she could pass. So my mind was already doing the prep work that it needed to make this process a little bit smooth, smoother for people who lose suddenly. I really feel for them because it's hitting.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:01:27] It's like hitting a brick wall. There's no way around it. The minute I heard that my daughter had two weeks to live, like, bam. You know, I've just never felt that feeling. I'll never feel it again. But it's important to give yourself a lot of grace while you're grieving and to go through these stages appropriately. Some of the stages I'm going to, hopefully I can remember all of them right. You have anger and you have denial. You have bargaining and depression and acceptance. Those don't happen in order or chronologically. They can happen at all different times and on repeat. I'm a year out from losing my daughter, and I still find myself bargaining sometimes and returning back to that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:02:09] I think it's very helpful when you're grieving to know that these feelings are very natural. It's very, very natural to feel anger. It's very natural to feel denial and depression and bargaining. It's about finding your support system to help you through those moments so that when you keep on returning to those moments, because you will keep returning to those moments, because grieving can be a lifelong process, you'll know how to get through it. For me, the number one thing that has helped me through this is my family, my friends, and the support system that I have. Like, that has been it for me. That is what is healing me.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:02:48] It's the people showing up in my life and saying, I love you. I don't care if you sit here and cry all day. I don't care if you sit here and don't say anything. I'm here for you. Anything that you need.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:03:00] That's what's gotten me through. Definitely. Mothering my children has been a huge part for me. Earlier in the story, we talked about my grandmother losing her son and my dad feeling like he kind of lost her as a mom. And I remember when I knew Izzy was going to pass, I thought, I'm not going to do that to my kids. I know my dad was really hurt, and I know my grandma couldn't help it.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:03:26] But because of that experience that I had in learning about that, I knew that I needed to show up for my kids, and that's really helped me. Having Alayna being the surviving twin is huge. It's huge because she's kind of built in purpose. Another thing that really happens when you lose someone is you just lose all purpose. You kind of have this moment of, what am I doing? Where do I go from here? Especially with a baby, your purpose was built in when you became pregnant with that baby. You were gonna have that baby and then take care of that baby. And then when they're stripped from you, what do you do?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:04:03] You have to find something else to keep you going. Alaina has helped me a lot with that because I had to take care of her and wanted to take care of her, was naturally devoted to take care of her. But another thing that I'm finding incredible purpose in is helping other people.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:04:18] The reason I like that purpose, and if I were to say to anybody who's searching for something to kind of give them motivation, it would be search for something that you can always do, even as things fluctuate, independent of other people. Yes.

John Dehlin [03:04:31] Right.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:04:32] So I can always help. I can always choose to be a positive motivator or someone who helps other people. Even when I'm not mothering anymore, or even when I'm not working or if I'm not in this job or that job, I can always do that. So for me, that's what I'm really dialing into. And I found that to be very helpful.

John Dehlin [03:04:50] Yeah, because kids move away.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:04:53] Yes, they do. And I don't even want to think about that, John, because I'm, like, so dialed into my kids right now.

John Dehlin [03:04:59] Listen, take it from us.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:05:01] Yes, yes. And this whole experience, I believe it or not, I used to never cry because I grew up with three brothers, and you got, like, pummeled if you cried. So, like, you know, there's no crying in baseball kind of thing. But. But I cry at the drop of a hat now. I mean, anytime my kids do anything, I mean, they could just tell me that they love me and, like, that's it. I'm. I'm done, you know? But one of the things you were talking about is sometimes religious institutions or systems can really hinder grieving when they don't offer solutions like what we were just talking about. And sometimes. And there's a talk that I had brought up that Elder Anderson gave in the Fall General Conference.

John Dehlin [03:05:42] This is a Mormon apostle. Yes, Neil Anderson.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:05:45] So it's fallen 2024, fall 2024. And the title is Something About Hope. And the whole idea is about how, you know, we find hope in Jesus, and that's fine. But he really defines grief a little bit in that talk. And he gives two examples. He gives examples of a family who'd fallen away from the church and they lose somebody and a family that was still in the church and they lost somebody. And how the talk kind of goes is the family that fell away from the church and lost somebody struggled, whereas the family that stayed in the church and lost somebody did not struggle. They even actually found joy.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:06:30] I really hated that idea because it makes you think that, like, especially. I actually especially hate it for people who are still in the church. I actually think a talk like that puts the burden more on people who are fully believing still, because it makes them think, if I lose somebody, I can't grieve.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:06:49] Because if I'm grieving, am I not righteous? If I'm grieving, am I not faithful enough? If I'm grieving, do I not believe enough? That is so far from the truth.

John Dehlin [03:07:02] What's the benefit of healthy grieving versus just denial and avoidance?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:07:07] Yeah, well, I mean, you have to, like, walk through the tunnel to see the light. Like, that's Such a clean, cliche example. But you have to work through these things in a process. You have to kind of, like, let it out. And that is painful, and that is hard.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:07:21] And if you don't, then you're always going to be dealing with it. And, I mean, you might always deal with it anyway, but it becomes easier. Like, I have moments all the time where these things resurface, and I have to kind of work through it again. I have to remind myself of my purpose. I have to. To lean on the people that give me support.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:07:43] Therapy is an amazing resource. I cannot say that enough, especially a good therapist that you jive with, you know, proper help. If you keep on burying it, it's going to rear its ugly head in other ways. It's going to debilitate your life.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:59] Yeah,

John Dehlin [03:08:01] yeah. And is it. Is it glib to say there's healing and growth and wisdom that can come through grieving?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:08:09] Absolutely. It's not glib at all. And in fact, that's the life lesson that I've learned. You know, that's why I value this experience of understanding what it's like to be close to death with somebody. It's made life brighter. That doesn't mean I'm happier all the time. So I don't want people to mistake that, because there's despair there, you know, I mean, the more you love, the more you grieve.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:08:38] So there's an amazing amount of despair. But because I understand that life is such a gift now, and Izzy's experience taught me this. I don't feel like I knew this before. I know people say it all the time, but I didn't feel it in my heart, and now I feel it in my heart. Life is this really beautiful gift, and there are so many, so many amazing things about it. There's also a lot of crappy stuff. Like, a lot. But there's beautiful things, and those are the things that I strive to look for.

Izzy as Teacher and Celebrating Her Life

John Dehlin [03:09:08] You wrote in your outline that you see Izzy as one of your greatest teachers.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:09:13] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And she always will be. Sometimes. I don't always like to phrase it that way because I. I don't like.

John Dehlin [03:09:20] Did I say it wrong?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:09:21] No, you said it perfectly because that's how I said it. Right. So you're just quoting me. But. But sometimes people will say, oh, this person existed because they taught me this lesson.

John Dehlin [03:09:32] Yeah. That's not why they existed.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:09:33] Right. And I want people to understand that when I say, easy is my greatest teacher, it doesn't diminish her existence. She exists Just her existing was enough. Like, if I have to learn anything, I have to learn that on my own. I don't need a child passing to teach me that lesson. But she did teach me a lot. This whole experience taught me a lot. So much. I'll tell you, I've never been a happier mom than since losing Izzy. I mean, things that I used to complain about, I just don't anymore. Like a baby crying. I mean, what a blessing to hear a baby cry. It's hard sometimes. I know, but also they're there. They're crying because they're there. Changing diapers, getting up in the night, things like that. Any milestone that my kids have, I'm just really happy to be there, there with them.

John Dehlin [03:10:23] That's powerful.

Margi Dehlin [03:10:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:10:26] You mentioned all the women who helped in her care and passing, and then you made the bold decision when maybe there was some expectation or pressure to have a Mormon themed funeral. Do you want to talk about that really quick?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:10:40] I do. I think it's interesting and I don't know if people know. I mean, in Mormonism there is kind of a cultural funeral that you stick to. It would probably take place in a church building. And it's almost like they approach it, almost like they do with baptisms. A lot of times it's priesthood leaders giving talks. They actually usually advise that it be more spiritually based. Right. Teaching more doctrinal, spiritual type lessons at the funeral than it being about the person. About the person, yes.

John Dehlin [03:11:10] And that there's a full plan of salvation talk at the end of the. The funeral.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:11:14] Right, Exactly. Exactly. So my dad was really helpful after Izzy passed. The business of death is very difficult. If anybody has gone through it, like finding a grave site and, you know, life insurance and paying for everything, it's very hard. My dad helped a lot with that. I'm so grateful that he helped with that.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:11:35] But he really wanted to have more of a Mormon style funeral. And I got very upset when he suggested that either he, my father in law, or the bishop preside over her funeral. I mean, I was just beside myself, really upset about that because I thought, why?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:11:53] I mean, first of all, why do any of you need to preside over her funeral? The bishop didn't even know her. And he's a wonderful man, but he doesn't know her. And then my dad and my father in law were there for Izzy, but not anywhere near as much as the grandmothers were. I mean, night and day.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:12:14] And so I thought, well, I'm not going to let you step in in the name of priesthood, power and authority to change how my daughter's funeral is going to be conducted. So I felt very strongly, I wanted it to just be about Izzy. Totally focused on Izzy. I mean, the whole room was pink. We had pink tablecloths. Her casket was pink. All her flowers were pink. It was all about Isabel. And we just talked about our life and our love for her. And we sang the songs that we would sing to her in the hospital, the songs that she loved.

John Dehlin [03:12:45] What were. Do you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:12:47] Now you're gonna make me cry, John. No, it's okay. So we did sing one hymn, and it's called Softly and Tenderly. I actually really love that hymn. And. And we sing that to her at the hospital. So we sang her that one. But her favorite ones were you are my sunshine and a song called Always by Patsy Cline. I had a friend of mine, two friends of mine perform it. It was so beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:20] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:13:20] If you've never listened to the song, you should. It's beautiful.

John Dehlin [03:13:24] My mom used to sing to me, you are my sunshine.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:13:26] Yeah. You know, the songs feel. Something that's been hard for me since is singing to Alayna. I sing to all my babies when they were little, and I've really struggled to sing with her, but I've made it a goal to work on it, and I have found some healing. Sometimes I can't return to those songs, and other times I can. And when I can, I feel healing for sure.

Finding Meaning and Purpose After Loss

Margi Dehlin [03:13:54] I think one of the questions I have for you is around, you know, something we hear as people transition away from especially like high demand religions or high control, is this. This fear comes up, I think, immediately about death. Yeah. At least I've witnessed that in my coaching practice. Almost immediately, immediately it goes to like, what am I going to do when my mother dies? What am I going to do when? It's just something that really. I think it's very common to have it come up, and I think so I'd be curious as to if that had ever entered your mind before, your experience as part of the existential kind of peace

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:14:44] and kind of how you

Margi Dehlin [03:14:45] think about it, how you think about it now, having gone through, I think a death and not necessarily. It sounds like reattaching to certainty and knowing as a way to kind of comfort in that way. What would you say about that?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:15:03] Yeah, well, it's such a good thing to bring up because when you're in Mormonism, death really isn't that scary. Right. For those who don't know, Mormons have a very clear doctrine about what they the afterlife looks like. And when you're fully believing, it's extremely comforting. And I remember when I was in Mormonism, that was actually one of my favorite things about it is I felt like I had so much comfort in the idea of what an afterlife looks like. And that's very specific, but, like, there's basically three different types of heaven. And if you're the best, you go to the best, and you live on forever, and you're really kind of set up for success, and your family will be with you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:15:42] So then I remember going through my existential crisis, and that was one of the hardest things to tackle. Absolutely. I was terrified, truly. I had a moment of crazy despair where I just felt very dark. I didn't know. And a lot of members, I know if they heard this, they would say, oh, we'll come back. Like, we know, but you have to understand, I couldn't come back even if I wanted to. I don't believe it anymore. It's not there. There's that. There's that moment in Wicked. Now, I'm making, like, silly analogies, but where Elphaba is like, realize that the wizard is fake. And Glinda's like, you can still be with the wizard.

John Dehlin [03:16:21] You can still be with the wizard.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:23] Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:16:24] And she's like. She's like, I know, but I don't want it. I. I can't want it anymore.

John Dehlin [03:16:30] Because I don't want it. I can't want it anymore.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:16:33] Exactly. Yeah. I love that John's like, here for this analogy. This is perfect. So I really had that moment where it was like, the. You know, the mask is off.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:46] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:16:47] I know what's behind the wizard. It's not real. So even if I wanted to believe it, I couldn't. And that's why it's not comforting. So it can. No, it's no longer a comfort option. It's not even an option anymore. And I know a lot of members of the church really struggle to understand why. Like, just come back. You'll feel. Feel comforted. I couldn't even if I wanted to. So I was in a very dark space. I really feel like Izzy's experience took me out of that. I just have. So I really cannot stress how much I value life now. And I understand that death is a part of life. I still think it's a little scary, but I think it's the calling that we eventually all have to go to.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:29] Yeah. It's here, huh?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:17:31] Yeah. And so all you can do is be as courageous and graceful. Graceful as you can. I'm not perfect at this. I fail constantly, daily. But how I try to approach each day is I'm going to try my best today. And I'm going to try to make today a day that was worth living for me, for my children. And then if I mess up, then if I get a two tomorrow and I wake up the next day, I'm gonna do that again. And if I don't, I hope that I can look back and say, I tried really hard. I tried to make today great. I think I've lived my life as well as I could.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:05] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:18:06] I think I've loved people and I find comfort in that. Living a life that way.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:10] Yes. Okay, my last question is around. It feels like one of the shifts that we make as we move away from, from again, high demand, high control. Religion is away from certainty and control into this place of uncertainty. And I think you've lived that boy in so many ways in your story, right. And also, you know, one of the things that is clearly deconstructed for you is this transactional way of living. Like if, if I give everything, if I just show up with xyz, then maybe I'll get protection or maybe I'll be spared these things or maybe my child will be healed or maybe. And I think that's something that is part of the uncertainty.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:19:02] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:19:02] That deconstructs and we realize actually that isn't quite the way it works. You know, what do you do to ground yourself as you live in a world that's uncertain? You know, what are some things that you have found to be helpful to try to, you know, live with that now?

John Dehlin [03:19:27] Yeah.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:19:28] Oh, that's such a good question. And of course I'm failing at this all the time, right? We all are. We're all trying to like find our ways to grapple through. But I do feel like there are things, things that have helped me personally. And I'm gonna start sounding like a very like spiritual yogi type person. But meditation has been huge in the last few years. My anxiety has gone through the roof. I've become a very anxious person and I feel it rise. I'll kind of start to have a panic attack. And I've had to find self managing ways to come down from it. So that's a really good example of like, that's a moment of uncertainty.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:20:03] You can't predict always when you're anxiety is going to rise. Then you have to find ways to come down for it. For me, I do like a series of breathing and meditation and it really, truly helps me, for sure. But bigger than that. So being mindful of yourself, of your body, kind of connecting to your body, I truly believe in that. The whole meditation. I do a lot of yoga because yoga helps me become more in tune with myself and just feel at peace within myself, myself. It's a moment of peace that I don't have when I step outside the door always.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:20:37] So I do love that it's a small little thing that I can kind of control and get connected with myself. So finding a way to connect with like your inner peace. So for me, that's yoga, that's meditating. But bigger than that, it's my support system. Developing a support system. And if someone doesn't have a support system, I know that's really difficult because then how do you find that? I have found that there are friends that can be family. With the right friends, they can be family. Sometimes they can be better than family, depending on your family system.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:21:06] I've been so fortunate to find a really good support system of friends who have loved me both in the church and out of the church, both who have loved me unconditionally and been there and showed up for them. So the uncertainty is always scary. There will be days I feel like I can't handle it and my life is still very uncertain.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:21:29] First of all, we're never guaranteed tomorrow, but then I have a lot of things going on with my life personally, with my career and with my marriage where I don't know what the future is going to look like. And it's very scary. So I just try to take it one step at a time. Lean on my support system. Your support system can also be therapy. That can be a support system. Lean on your support system and find ways to connect with your inner peace. That would be the right recipe for me.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:51] Yes. Yeah. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:21:54] And if your early years, your first half of life, were characterized by not wanting and silencing and sacrificing who you are to be what the church wanted you to be, what are you discovering now about who you are, what you want.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:22:18] And ways that you aren't gonna necessarily self sacrifice, but instead be your happiest or best self. Anything you're discovering as you integrate your innie and outie.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:22:30] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:32] Such a good question, babe.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:22:34] That is a wonderful question. And it's hard one to answer.

John Dehlin [03:22:38] You don't have to have answers. I just.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:22:40] Yeah, I do. I do have a few. So I. I had a breakdown to my mom the other day. My. My mom's A very kind and supporting caring person, which is why this moment's kind of funny. I broke down to her. I was, like, crying, bawling, and I just said, mom, you know, I wanted my life to be extraordinary, you know, And I was just crying, and she just started laughing, which is so unlike her. And so I was like, what's going on? And she said, jenny. Because I said, this is what I said. I said, I'm 37, you know, and I wanted my life to be extraordinary.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:23:10] Talking about as if my life is ending or something. And she just said, jenny, you're so young. She's like, your life can be extraordinary. And so I would say my theme really is about living every day to the fullest. Whereas before, it was absolutely about sacrifice to reach a fullness, now it's about making my here and now the fullest best ever. I'm definitely trying to return to things I'm passionate about, personally. Personally, I'm trying to rock the motherhood thing, because that is very important to me. But I also. I love writing. That's what I went to school for. I'm trying to ramp up my writing again.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:23:48] I love that. I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with my career. I want to be a successful, independent person who can take care of her children. So I'm just working every day on those goals. So it's about living life to the fullest every single day. I'm not always successful at that, so that's important. I fail at it daily.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:04] It is likely a life practice.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:24:07] Yes, definitely. Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [03:24:10] Well, Margi and I were reading your outline. We're like, she's a writer.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:24:13] Oh, thank you. I was, like, very stressed out about writing that outline because I was trying not to.

John Dehlin [03:24:20] It was only seven pages.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:24:22] I know. Only seven pages. And I was trying not to go back and, like, edit it too much because I'm like, this will take weeks if I do this. So thank you for saying that. I do love writing. It was my passion. I. I've always steered towards things that are kind of high feeling. Like when I was really into performance and I went to school, eventually, when I was at school, I decided I want to do writing. And I was really passionate about it and still am. And that's also a big reason why I loved teaching. I mean, it's very high feeling to be a teacher. You impact people daily, and I got to participate in things that I loved, so.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:59] That's right.

Jennie's Writing, Healing, and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [03:24:59] Would you mind sharing with the US your. At least your Instagram account because I get a sense you've got a little bit of a following there and you do have videos and photos about your baby.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:25:11] I do.

John Dehlin [03:25:12] So for those who are interested.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:25:13] Yeah. For people who are interested in following along, especially since recently I've changed my Instagram to be more of a platform and space for people healing from grief. So if that's something you're interested in following along, it's J. Latham Johnson. So Latham Latham is a tough name to spell.

John Dehlin [03:25:29] L A T H A M. Is that right?

Margi Dehlin [03:25:30] Yes.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:25:30] L A T H A M. J. Latham Johnson. And you'll see a lot of my story there. And I'll continue to share things about Izzy if there's anyone out there. Because I've seen this a lot on, like the Internet verse. Right. You know, people sometimes wonder why you might share stories like this openly. I find it to be very healing. And also, if you remember what I said, Izzy's life was so significant to me. It's very hard for that life to then just diminish from the world to leave. And I want people to know about her. I want people to see her. She was so cute. Like, I want people to see her.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:08] You want the evidence that she existed? You want it out there? Yes. It's a witness to her.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:26:14] Yeah. And that she was important. She's changed my life. Absolutely. And so that is why I share. That's the point. And if on the off chance someone can find the page and find it to be comforting, that's the goal. So if you'd like to follow along. Of course, that's always helpful. Definitely helpful for the things that I'm trying to achieve. My. My long term goal. I don't know how long term it is. I'd love to start a foundation in her name. It's tricky to do. I'm talking. I'm starting the talks with people now. Something nonprofit. I don't really know what it's going to look like, but a lifelong dream would be to be able to start some sort of nonprofit with Izzy's name on it that could help families of pediatric patients.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:58] Yeah. And you do have a substack. Do you want to share that or would you?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:27:01] Yeah, I do. It's called Navigating the Storm. And you can find all these links on my Instagram. Instagram's like the best place to go and just find all the links. I do have a substack and I've been sharing basically a written version of what we talked about here. But I also share other things and I'M sure in the future it will change as well. In my past, I didn't write memoir type stuff at all. I always wrote fiction. That's what I was passionate about. And I'm still passionate about it. But I haven't found my way back to it quite yet.

John Dehlin [03:27:31] I just started a substack. So let's follow each other. How's that?

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:27:35] Yes, let's follow each other. That's the. Yes, that's the best. Substack's really fun because it's writers and so it's kind of like diving into my universe.

John Dehlin [03:27:44] It's better than Twitter. Shh.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:27:46] Yeah. Oh, I would agree. But, you know, anytime. And you know this being on any sort of, like, social platform can feel very overwhelming because you're trying to manage all of the social platforms and they're all so different.

John Dehlin [03:27:58] Yeah, they really are. Well, what a beautiful and a powerful story, Jenny Latham Johnson. Margi and I can't thank you enough for your willingness to be vulnerable and to share your life and your husband's life and Izzy's life with all of us.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:19] Yes, thank you.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:28:20] We appreciate you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share about her. And so now think about this. Her legacy is on video here forever, hopefully. Oh, and I should add, and this is important because I use this symbolism a lot. So her name was Isabel Blanche and we called her Izzy B. Our b busy bee because of how active she was in pregnancy. So anytime I think of Izzy, I think of bees. So you'll see a lot of bees. I'm wearing a bee today and you'll see bees all over my stuff. And that is why, because it's Izzy and I like bringing my Izzy power with me anytime I can.

John Dehlin [03:28:54] Beautiful. All right, well, thanks so much, Jenny Latham Johnson.

Jennie Latham Johnson [03:28:59] Thank you, thank you.

John Dehlin [03:29:02] And thanks for joining us today. Thanks. Thanks to Brooklyn for all she's doing behind the scenes. Thanks to all the Mormon Story staff. Thanks to all the donors that make this possible. We couldn't do it without you. And if you feel moved to become a donor, you can go to MormonStories.org and become a donor. There are other ways to help as well. Just liking this episode, subscribing to the channel, sharing this link with others all helps get the work and helps with engagement, even commenting, asking questions, giving feedback. All that helps. So thanks to everyone who helps and most importantly, just thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks to Margi for being partner and co host.

Margi Dehlin [03:29:49] Absolutely. Happy to do it.

John Dehlin [03:29:52] Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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