Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] The Relief Society president in a Mormon ward or congregation is the closest thing we have to a bishop for women.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:00:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:00:08] It's sort of the highest level position a woman can hold in a Mormon congregation, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:00:13] Yes. As a Relief Society president, I started deconstructing these beliefs and taking a look at them. He came to the conclusion that the church does tithing wrong. He started then thinking about, well, what else is wrong? He finally started looking at the temple. The Book of Mormon stuff kind of started to fall apart. The idea of the priesthood, it just was breaking apart his testimony. But I also saw, on the other hand, he's becoming a better person because of this. This deconstruction of the church is making him more compassionate to my plight, to plight of women in patriarchy, women in general. It's making him more compassionate to LGBTQ people.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:00:52] And how is that possible as you're deconstructing the church that is supposed to be the source of all eternal happiness? And he's becoming better. And it was then that I realized all of these things that have not made sense to me from the time that I was a little girl until now. There's a reason for that. I am smart. I do understand this. I am not broken. I don't have to push my thoughts, my critical thinking to the back of my head anymore. I can allow my thoughts to have place in my head.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:01:21] And all of a sudden I realized Mormonism has given me so many good things, but there's also so much wrong with it. And I finally wanted to know. I was prepared to listen and hear all those things.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:34] This is where sometimes for people that are in mixed faith situations, the church becomes a barrier that separates the couple.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:01:44] It just was breaking us in all the ways.

John Dehlin [00:01:47] And your marriage was built on a certain contract, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:01:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:01:50] And from the believer's perspective, the non believing spouse is breaking the contract.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:01:57] And so the church teaches you, when this is happening, what do you need to do? You need to double down. You need to pray more, you need to read your scriptures more, you need to go to the temple more. You need to do more service in the church. And so what did I. I started doing all those things because that's what the church teaches you is supposed to work in, is the way you find happiness and peace and contentment together. And it wasn't working. It was having the opposite effect.

John Dehlin [00:02:19] Was it driving a wedge between you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:02:20] Absolutely. Yeah. And I said, bishop, it's time for you to release me as your Relief Society president. And he was so shocked.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:30] I am not surprised.

John Dehlin [00:02:33] Yeah. Because you're the highest ranking woman in the entire congregation.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:02:36] He was shocked and he do you want to tell me why? And I said to him, I can no longer teach and testify in the way that you or the church expects me to. And. And I won't do it.

John Dehlin [00:02:51] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 4, 2025, and today we're going to hear a story about a LDS Church in it to win it Relief Society president who resigns as Relief Society president. In the past, we've had lots of bishops on and we've had Relief Society presidents on, but just this, I had some women come up to me at a THRIVE conference and say, it's not fair that you're always spotlighting bishops and stake presidents and men. Women don't have access to those leadership positions. But we have good stories, too. So I'm super glad that we keep also interviewing women who are important parts of the power structure, who also, interestingly, have their own faith journeys. And today, here in studio to talk about hers is Jennifer or Jen Jeppson Wilson. Hey, Jen.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:03:50] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] Thanks for joining us.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:03:52] Thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Were you in it to win it?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:03:54] You bet I was. Absolutely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] And you resigned as Relief Society president. We're all going to be on the edges of our seats to hear what led to that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:04:03] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Also in studio, of course, I have my partner in truth and righteousness, Margi. Hey, Margi. Wow.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:11] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:04:12] As you say, partner in crime. But we're not committing crimes. At least we're not trying to. Anyway. Glad you're here.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:18] Yeah, absolutely.

Setting Intentions for the Conversation

John Dehlin [00:04:20] All right. Well, Jen, as we always try and do, we try to start with an intention, because I'm sure you have some still believing LDS Church family and friends, is that right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:04:33] Absolutely, yes. Many.

John Dehlin [00:04:35] And I'm sure they're all going to hear about Mormon stories because people tend to hear about it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:04:40] Maybe.

John Dehlin [00:04:41] So we like to just start off with, like, why would you ever want to do this interview? To make sure we dispel any myths about any ill intent.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:04:51] Yeah. First of all, just thank you. What an honor and a privilege it is to be here and speaking to you today. To have the opportunity to have my story among the Mormon stories family is such a privilege and an honor, especially because Mormon stories has been such a big part of not only my deconstruction, but also my reconstruction for my life post Mormon.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:05:19] So in that sense, I want to pay it forward to those that are searching and trying to Figure out where do I go? What does this mean? What can my life look like now that wherever someone's at in their Mormon stories journey.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:05:35] So it's a great privilege and an honor to have my story among all the others Mormon stories. But also, yeah, I hope that someday my family may get the opportunity to watch this and listen to my story. And I do understand, you know, that my family, my siblings, my parents play a part in my story and I hope that I do their part. Justice and respect. With respect and love as well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:06:05] I don't want to speak for anybody else's story, but I want. They've also had an impact on me and so I hope that it comes across with respect and love as well.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] So is it fair to say you'll be sharing things today that you haven't even been able to share with close family?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:06:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Oh, wow. Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:06:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:24] And a never Mormon. You know, half our audience has never been Mormon. They'd be like, what? Why wouldn't you be able to share?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:06:28] Yeah, why does that matter, right?

John Dehlin [00:06:29] No, no, no. They would ask, why wouldn't you be able to share everything with all your close family even, you know, even though you're maybe you're views on the church changed a little bit. But that's not how high demand religions work.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:06:42] Exactly. It is so our beliefs and our are so intertwined with our family structure and who we are as people that if you claim not to believe in that, it's a problem. And especially our parents take that personally. Like, I didn't raise you to be like that. That is an issue. And it actually, my deconstruction of the church and my beliefs has actually made it easier for me to have conversations with my siblings and my parents and especially my mother about just things that I think and feel and believe now. And it's really been a great rebuilding thing with my family.

John Dehlin [00:07:28] Beautiful. All right, well, that's great. Well, I'm really, you know, I saw in your outline you referenced the Jeppson compound and the word Jeppson. A couple things come to mind. I don't know, is that a name that's common in kind of Mormon fundamentalist polygamy?

Pioneer Ancestry and Polygamist Roots

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:07:45] Sort of, yes. So yes, my ancestors came from Sweden, Denmark, and after Utah had been founded and they went right to Brigham City and they did were polygamists. So we have pictures of my ancestor, you know, in jail in the black and white outfits. And it's always one of those things that is kind of comical that people look at with pride. There's pictures out There of those.

John Dehlin [00:08:15] So you had ancestors who were put in jail for being polygamous? Yes. Oh, wow.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:20] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:08:20] Yes. And those ancestors are buried in the Brigham City cemetery near Prophets. I don't know what prophet is buried up there.

John Dehlin [00:08:28] Yeah, I'm sure Boyd K. Packer is. That was his neck of the woods. He wasn't a prophet, but he was a prophet.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:08:33] Yeah. Close enough. Right. So we spent every Memorial Day as a kid to the cemetery that has a park next to it, playing in the cemetery, celebrating Memorial Day, looking at those ancestors graves, talking about our polygamous grandparents, and all are the generations after.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] So immediately then, my mind goes to an interview I did very early on with Christine Jepsen Clark.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:08:57] Yes, I watched that.

John Dehlin [00:09:00] What's that?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:00] I watched that.

John Dehlin [00:09:01] Yeah. Well, actually, you listened to it because that was before we actually did video. I don't mean to correct you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:07] You're right.

John Dehlin [00:09:08] It's trivia for the nerds out. But for the longest time, that was the most popular episode ever.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:15] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:09:15] During kind of the listening Only era. That was the most popular interview ever. Christine Jepsen Clark. Her dad, Malcolm Jepsen, came from the Brigham City area, and he was Boyd K. Packer's doctor, but he was also a general authority who was kind of the hatchet man that helped the September 6th all get excommunicated. So is that a family? Do you even know if he's a cousin?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:39] We're in the same line.

John Dehlin [00:09:40] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:09:41] Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's. He was intense.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] So that gives me another flavor when

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:09:47] I listen to that. There's a lot of things of her story that resonate with me. The way her dad was with her and the way my dad is with me. Yeah. Resonated very much so.

John Dehlin [00:09:55] Wow. So that's cool. Okay. So Brigham City. All right. So, yeah. Tell us a little bit about maybe your parents and how they met.

Parents, Faith, and Family Culture

Margi Dehlin [00:10:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:10:05] And then I want to hear about the Jeppson compound.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:10:07] What's up with the Jeppson compound? That sounds polygamy.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:10:10] It sure does. But it was not. So. Yeah. My dad spent time growing up in the Salt Lake area and then also Idaho when his dad took over a farm near Rexburg. They were dairy farmers. So he graduated high school from up there. My mom grew up in Salt Lake. She went to Brighton High School.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:10:31] Her parents were Doe Bengals. Yes. So both of my grandmothers actually grew up in Orem. 1. Her father was or her mother were rlds. So she didn't join the church until after high school. She attended seminary with friends and then later got baptized. And then my dad's mom, though very much was active in the church. Her family was. And people will know this that are members of the church. Her father was a barber and her mother was a baker. And their barber chair and their brick oven is in a little restaurant in Provo called the Brick Oven. Ooh.

John Dehlin [00:11:06] Margi crashed into the brick oven once.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:08] I did.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:11:08] Really?

Margi Dehlin [00:11:10] Here's my car. Okay. Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:11:11] So that's my great grandparents.

John Dehlin [00:11:13] Oh, wow. Very cool.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:11:15] Yes. So I have deep Mormon roots. So then they moved to Salt Lake somehow. And that's where my mom was born and raised in Salt Lake. They met when my dad was working as a teller at a bank and my mother worked at a restaurant and she would go deposit the checks and my dad saw her, thought she was beautiful and finally got the courage to ask her out.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] Fun.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:11:39] So that's. They were married in the mid-70s.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:11:44] So. And then I'm their first child. They lived on the avenues when I was born and I have fond memories of that place. Lived there. But then they quickly. They bought one of my grandparents old homes in Farmington and moved to Farmington. So Davis county, for those who don't

John Dehlin [00:12:02] know, Farmington's kind of north of Salt Lake.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:12:04] Yes. Uh huh.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] But kind of it's where everybody knows the lagoon. Lagoon is there and then it's kind of. It's near bountiful.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:12:14] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:12:14] But it's kind of intense. I mean it's not Rexburg, it's not Provo, but it's maybe third in intensity.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:12:20] Yeah, it's very intense in Mormonism. There's a lot of general authorities that come from that area and so they have lots of. I went to high school with many of their grandkids. People are very devout Mormon there and it's a great community. It is. So I loved my childhood. I had a great childhood.

John Dehlin [00:12:39] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:12:40] We moved there at a time where it was very small. There was not a lot of people there in the mid-70s, so people were really spread out. And we lived kind of at the edge of Farmington where we were very isolated. So my siblings and I spent a lot of time playing with each other. We didn't have a ton of friends around us, which was great. We loved it. We had a great childhood driving through there.

John Dehlin [00:13:01] Now it just looks totally congested and built up.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:13:03] Yes. So much.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:05] Yes. It was quite a bit different.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:13:06] Yes.

Growing Up in Farmington

Margi Dehlin [00:13:06] So would you say you had like a lot of space land wise to explore as kids?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:13:12] Yes. Lots of farmers fields, lots of creeks. And we were right near the mountains. We could go into the mountains. So it's kind of this idyllic childhood where we were outside all of the time we were playing. We had a lot of freedom that way. Yeah, it was wonderful.

John Dehlin [00:13:29] And so how does this fit in with the compound?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:13:30] So then when I was in the mid-70s, my great grandmother and her children bought all this property in Farmington. They built their homes there. They had this huge barn. Cows, horses, chickens, goats. Orchards and gardens. They built outbuildings. My grandmother loved woodworking. She had that. They built a place, a kitchen, just for canning, so they could store the canning.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:54] This is a compound?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:13:56] Yes. So we would always go there and work. And when I was young, my dad, like I said, bought one of my grandfather's older homes. And then later, when I was 11, they built a home near that, on that compound area, on that property. They didn't call it a compound. Everyone else did. It's just property. And it was beautiful. And they worked so hard that we. Anytime that we were bored, it was go see what Grandma and Grandpa have for you to do. We were always mowing grass. We were picking, gardening, playing there.

John Dehlin [00:14:27] Picking fruit.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:14:28] Yes, picking fruit and vegetables.

John Dehlin [00:14:30] Peaches.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:14:30] Peaches, apricots, pears, apples. Grapes. They had grapes that would grow along the cow pasture. I did lots of grape juice with my grandmother. I learned that she would pour the milk from the cows, you know, and they were doing that.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:44] This feels so unique.

John Dehlin [00:14:46] You know what? For all the Mormon Stories episodes we've done, we have not talked about fruit picking and canning almost at all, because it's huge. So Mormons. I can't believe we haven't really covered that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:14:57] Yeah, it's because it's kind of gotten out of fashion. But the church used to have canneries all over the place, and you could go and can.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] Yeah, this, you know, canned peaches, canned pears. Like that was so much, you know, Kerr jars and Mason jars.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:15:16] And, yeah, canning. So Mormon.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:19] And when I left home, I never wanted to do it again.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:23] You missed out.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] It's something I appreciated but never wanted to learn for some reason.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:28] So many great memories. You're like, I love that.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:31] For you to do. For me to eat.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:33] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:15:34] For me to eat and you to do.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:35] Yeah. But so it developed within all of us this intensity of work. So that was a really huge theme with my family. But my grandmother made it fun, so we did a lot of canning and juice making with her and with my parents. We always had a good time doing it.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:52] So work, but also fun, because I think that's not always the duo, so. Right, right. There's a seriousness oftentimes with work.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:15:59] Oh, yeah. We would spend family home evenings in the pea pad on the rows of peas and beans and picking all the peas and the beans. Snapping peas and beans. We picked raspberries and would sell raspberries. And it's hard to pick raspberries, they're really prickly. But I remember my mom would do it from the top and often I would crawl underneath. And it's also so beautiful. I remember crawling underneath the raspberry patches, watching the sun come in on these big red berries. And it' just these beautiful memories. You don't. I can't provide that for my kids. I don't have the same kind of thing, even though they want that. So it's this bygone time period, right?

Margi Dehlin [00:16:37] Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:16:38] My great grandmother lived there. I mean, she lived to be 94. I knew her. She was born in 1898. So we had this connection to people from the past and this lifestyle that was very different from people around us.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:50] Oh, I love that. I really love that. All right, can I ask you quickly a question about that? So I could see. So with your childhood, would you say, you know, having work basically all around you, I could see where as a child, there's always work to do in a way that you become very responsible for, as opposed to playful, like. As opposed to, like, we explore and there are times when you work, but there's a lot of exploration. Was it like, in balance or like, how would you talk about your childhood? Did you have this sense of like, fun, discovery almost? What is it free rangeness to it or is it both? Or did you have this sense too, of like. No, there's always work to be done.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:17:38] It's a very good question.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:39] You can go outside, but you need to actually contribute.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:17:42] Yeah. So I would say, especially being the oldest child, I had a lot more responsibility placed on me. So I have a sister and three brothers. I also had a lot of younger cousins as well that were around. But I'll tell you, when I was eight years old, I started babysitting for other people. And because I was so responsible, but I was a very good babysitter because I also knew how to have fun with kids. And so I think it was in pretty good balance. And I think that's something that I have always strived for, is the balance of work and fun. When my own kids got 8 years old, I would have never had them babysit. For somebody else. But part of my identity was I was the responsible one and people could always count on me to do what was expected and take care of things that they needed done.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:30] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:18:31] Like, my mom taught me that when I was babysitting, that always leave the house cleaner than you found it. She would teach me how to make sure that I could make dinners, you know, simple dinners for kids when I was babysitting. But yeah, so there was this sense of always things to be done. Often I would want to get out of the house because if my mom saw me doing something, she'd put me to work. Yes. But also if I was bored, I knew that grandma always had something for me to do that was kind of work, but it was not in my own home. It was a little bit different.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:03] So it was fun, different environment. And it sounds like your grandmother was fun.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:19:08] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:09] Yeah. That's really special.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:19:11] Yeah. And with my great grandmother being there, she was old. A lot of us would go take turns reading to her, and that was really neat. And she would sit with us and tell us stories about her growing up. So she is part of the parishes in Centerville. A lot of people will know. Parish Lane, it's one of the exits off of i15 into Centerville. And there's an elementary school named after the parishes there. But her family lived there for a while and then was sent to Cardston, Canada, to kind of settle that area. And then they moved to Idaho, where she was a schoolteacher in a one room schoolhouse. So she had all of these stories that she could sit and tell us when she saw the first light bulb, when she first saw a car. And so it was so walking history. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:54] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:19:55] So we got to sit at her feet and listen to that. She had many faith promoting stories as well from all of those times.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:03] Love it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:20:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] Okay. So that gives us a sense for your girlhood.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:20:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:20:10] Yeah. What do you want to say kind of about the Mormon aspects of your upbringing and your family?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:20:16] So one thing is having all those people around is that you kind of keep each other in check in your living of the gospel. And I don't remember having so many conversations necessarily in everyday life about just the beliefs, but that how you live the gospel. My family, though, was very good about taking care of each other and being a good person. So that was there. But one of my uncles was the bishop, and even when I turned 12, he was the bishop. And I remember in our interview as. As we sat down to talk, he told me, you are the third adult in the house. And it's your responsibility to be an example for your siblings and make sure that they are obedient. Obedient to your parents and are good, and that you help your parents out whenever you can. And I just remember thinking, that's so much responsibility. I don't want that.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:12] Oh, seriously, you're 12.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:21:14] Yeah. Yeah. So that was part of that also, I think there's so much that has to do with birth order. Right. So as the oldest child, my parents were practicing on me, and my mom was very strict in this is how we live and do things. You present yourself a certain way, and the way you looked and behaved was very important to my parents.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:39] The outward.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:21:40] Yes, yes. And so that. It definitely influenced me as I was growing up. My. I definitely felt this sense. One of the. I think one of the teachings of the church is that you're a daughter of God. And so I always had this sense of being a little bit special because of that. But then I wasn't as special, maybe, as my sister, who everybody looked at as like, she's very beautiful. And that was an attribute that people really gravitated towards. And not that she wanted to be recognized for that. She was very shy about it, but it was just people, as soon as they would see her, wow, she's so beautiful. And sometimes when someone recognizes your sibling who's just a year younger than you for that, then what you hear is you're not.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:30] Right.

John Dehlin [00:22:30] You know, so is part of that personality, like demure versus confident and assertive?

Margi Dehlin [00:22:36] Makes sense within Mormonism, I do think some of those attributes. Right. Being quieter.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:22:41] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:42] Being. It's perceived as. You're going to be more obedient.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:22:47] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:47] Yeah. Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:22:48] Sweet and beauty.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:50] I mean, because, you know, women in the church have, you know, just so little of space to kind of. Beauty is highly valued. Highly valued.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:22:59] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:59] But keeping sweet is highly valued. Maybe.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:01] I think so, too. Definitely at that time. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:23:04] Interesting.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] So maybe an association with kind of meek, humble, submissive as beauty.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:23:11] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:11] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] I like that description better.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:14] Okay, that's good. Yeah. And also in my family, there were these dynamics of who my mother was and who other women in the family were. Because we were so close to my dad's family, my mom always aspired to be a homemaker.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:23:29] She was a sterling scholar in homemaking in high school. She loves sewing. She loves cooking. She loves cleaning. She wanted to be a mother. She loved having the idea of the little children. She would dress them well and take care of us. And her house is always Immaculate. My dad has four sisters and they're all athletes. And not that they don't, they keep great homes, they're great cooks, but they don't aspire to be homemakers. When we were younger, like it wasn't my mother who was taking us outside to play and taking us on hikes, my dad's sisters would show up and steal us children away to go hiking, to go camping, to go to the lake.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:24:04] And they're the ones who I saw as these more powerful women living in a different way than my mother that I more that I naturally resonated with. I loved it so much and I'm grateful for both of that contrast. And they both shaped me.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:26] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:24:27] So in fact, the first home that we moved into, my grandparents home, wasn't quite finished and my mom was in her early 20s and my dad's youngest siblings had to live with us for a while still. I did not know how hard that was on her until I became a mother and realized, wow, if I had three teenagers living with me right now, that would be difficult. And I remember my mom fighting with them over doing the dishes or keeping their room clean or just what they were doing. The youngest uncle was kind of wild. I remember him riding his motorcycle and. But anyways, it made it so they almost felt like older siblings to me. So they had a greater influence on my life that way.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:07] Yeah. That's really interesting. So I'm kind of hearing a couple things. I'm hearing your mom, you know, it was a great fit being a mother and kind of the traditional role of women in Mormon ness. Right. Like she was a great fit for that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:25:22] Yes, yes. Right, yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:24] And also for you, maybe in having your sister and your mom in your immediate family, it was very helpful for you to have extended family where you were kind of shown more options.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:25:39] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:40] Would you say like potential mentors?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:25:42] Yes, absolutely. Yes. They showed me different ways to be a woman in the church.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:48] Yeah. That you might not have had in your just immediate family. Yeah, it's powerful.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:25:53] His sisters were like. One of them was our. At that time, young women's sports was a big thing. Basketball, volleyball, and I got to do all of those. And my aunt's aunt was a coach of all of those. She was our leader for girls camp. And that was at a time where the skills of camping and outdoors were incorporated into girls camp. They aren't anymore. Now it's just like a spiritual activity. But at that time, I really loved it because she was good at that. His sisters understood the outdoors and They, I mean, they grew up with my dad on this dairy farm. They'd had kind of a hard life, they'd experience things. And so I loved having that influence as well.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:36] Yeah. Got it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:26:38] They also, many of them were not like, we would use the term, kind of a Jack Mormon. All four of them weren't active all the time and. Yeah. And had different experiences with that in the church.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:55] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:26:56] So. And. But nobody would talk about it that much. It was just kind of this thing of like, oh, they're having a hard time, they don't go to church, or maybe they drink coffee or something, you know, and it's a little bit looked down upon or maybe they haven't received quite the testimony of this kind of thing yet. But. So I got to see already in my life that even though they're part of the church, that they don't always live all of the things that we're taught to.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:24] Right. That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:27:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:27] I'm liking this Mormon upbringing.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:29] I know, it's really.

John Dehlin [00:27:32] Did you like it?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:27:33] Yes. I had a great childhood.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] Yeah. Close knit family. Living on the farm.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:27:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] Getting lots of fun experiences. You know, diversity of worldviews.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:27:44] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:45] And I'm noticing like some of the conditioning that, I don't know, that can happen for women in the church. It's like, do you perceive it this way that you had a buffer? It feels like the feminization part that, you know, you've talked a little bit about. You have a buffer in wildness. You have a buffer in like being out in nature, running around.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:28:07] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:08] You know, being really active and, you know, with your body out there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:28:12] Yeah. So my mom, though, really tried to. I really wanted to play sports and she wouldn't let me, but she let me play piano. So she was always kind of pulling back on that.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:24] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:28:25] So I had to take piano lessons and I wanted to go out for the track team. No, I couldn't. I wanted to. There was a time I did try out for the softball team and I made it and I tried to be home so I could receive the phone call and she got it. And I got in so much trouble for trying out for the softball team.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:41] So you could not do sports.

John Dehlin [00:28:42] Now, I don't necessarily associate that with my Mormon experience where women were discouraged from sports.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:28:48] Agreed.

John Dehlin [00:28:49] So. But I'm not saying that wasn't normal. That's just I didn't experience it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:28:52] So it's just something that was. My mom felt like that was not feminine and was not the route she wanted for her Daughters, even though, like my dad's sisters, all played sports. And they, in fact, they even went and played college sports. Two of them at that time. It was Rick's college.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:29:10] So she had this idea that if women did sports, they were not gonna be feminine. They could perhaps be lesbian or drink or smoke or do things that she didn't agree with. And so I think she tried to keep me away from that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:29:24] She has since apologized about that because sports has become a huge part of my life, in my adulthood, and part of my identity. And she has apologized about that. Yeah, at the time, she was doing the best that she can. I do not fault my parents for anything that they did at that time, because I see that they did the best that they could with what they had.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:45] But what I love about that is it shows a parent that is willing to reflect and also grow. And part of that being taking accountability. And I think that that can be rarer in the experience.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:29:58] I think so too.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:59] So.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:29:59] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:00] Yeah. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:02] Okay. What about, like, your testimony, your family standards around the church of prayer? Family prayer. Fhe.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:30:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:13] Scripture study.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:30:14] My parents were really good at getting us up early in the morning to have family prayer. My dad is an early riser in the sense of he would often get up between 2 and 4am that's very early. I think it's too early. He would run, and we always saw him doing his gospel study in the morning. He would have all these books out and he would study the gospel. My dad is a scholar of the gospel. He would read his scriptures. He would write notes in it. And so part of that, right before he would go to work, which he would usually leave around 6am we, all of us kids were up and we would have family prayer together at 6am we also had family home evening.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:30:56] And while we were little, it was on Monday evenings. But. But as we became teenagers, it became Sunday afternoon. And often what that was, I'm pretty sure at that time there was the family home evening manual, but I don't remember using that a lot. My dad would read books to us. Like, the books that I remember the most are Cleon Skousen books. He would read those to us, and then we would share thoughts about those.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:24] Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:31:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] I mean, Cleon Skousen was. He's viewed as kind of a John Bircher, like, kind of guy, but he also wrote kind of gospel books as kind of like an amateur historian who could tell good stories.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:31:40] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] I read Cleon Skousen, you know, in high school and college.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:31:45] Yeah. I don't remember the books specifically, but I do remember sitting around our kitchen counter reading those and then kind of talking about it and my dad commenting on types of questions or comments that us kids had. And like, he liked that and that was good. We would have family home evening. We would often have a game that would be the one. My dad was not very emotionally available to us. He would go to bed very early because he got up so early, and so we had to be quiet at the house. And when he would go to work, come home, he would often help around the house or go out and do chores.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:32:23] There was so much always to do outside. So he wasn't. If we wanted to work with him, that's the time we could spend with dad. And then he would go to bed. But Sunday afternoons, we would have family home evening. He would often play a game with us. Sometimes we would go out in the yard and throw the baseball around. Super fun times.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:39] Oh, so you had more access to him? It sounds like.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:32:41] Yes. And when at that time, too, you probably remember the Sunday night Disney movies.

John Dehlin [00:32:46] Oh, yeah. We were allowed to watch Jimmy Cricket. Do you remember Jiminy Cricket?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:32:50] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:50] Yep.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:32:51] Always introducing it. We would make huge bowls of popcorn and often Orange Julius.

John Dehlin [00:32:55] Oh, my gosh.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:32:55] And sit around as a family and watch the Disney movie.

John Dehlin [00:32:57] This is my kind of Mormonism right here. I love this popcorn and juice.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:01] Are you kidding me, right?

John Dehlin [00:33:03] Jimmy Cricket. I'm no fool. He's still not sorry. I'm gonna live to be 103.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:09] You're right. You got it. Same in his little top hat, dancing. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] I love it. Oh, this is like idyllic Mormonism so far.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:18] Yes.

Teen Years, Identity, and Mormon Milestones

Margi Dehlin [00:33:18] Well, so let me just check in though. So the identity that you connected to during this time, so beyond childhood, let's say through teen year, what messages did you receive about who you were,

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:41] what

Margi Dehlin [00:33:41] was your identity that was built during that time?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:44] So very much that I was going to be a mother in Zion. That I was going to be somebody's help meet and raise children in the gospel.

John Dehlin [00:33:54] Can you explain to people what a help meet is?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:33:56] I don't even know if I knew

John Dehlin [00:33:57] a T or M E e T. Yeah, good question.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:34:02] A little bit of both. Yeah. The idea that my purpose. Supporter. Yes. Yeah. Is to help my husband. So even though my mom always worked as well, she had jobs outside of the home to provide and my parents were not against me going to school and getting an education and having a job, but that it would be secondary to whatever my husband was doing and I could get Education that would help me be a good mother.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:29] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:34:30] So that was always part of it. And I did. I always, in the back of my head, every time marriage and family was brought up. Not that I didn't want those things. I was like, why does that have to be the focus? I very early on resented that and didn't want that to be my focus. The idea of being a homemaker, I didn't resonate with. I knew I wanted to have a home and keep a clean home and take care of a home, but to aspire to be a homemaker is not something I ever wanted.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:01] Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:02] And so I resisted that.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:04] That's right. And that's why it's not quite idyllic.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:07] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:08] And that's what I meant. I didn't mean idyllic for you. I meant idyllic.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:12] I know.

John Dehlin [00:35:12] For the Mormon train. The Mormon. And for the very traditional gender roles that has not just been part of Mormonism, but like classic white, suburban Mormon middle class.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:25] 100%.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:26] Yes. So did you. How would you talk about how you processed at that time where you differentiated from your mom in particular? Because I would imagine she was such a strong figure.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:38] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:39] For you. And so where you were different, how did you process that about. And how did it play into how you felt about your. Like yourself?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:35:53] I had this feeling that my thoughts for myself were wrong, that what I wanted for myself was not the way to be, that I should want what the church and my parents were teaching me that I wanted. And I do think that ultimately my parents really just wanted for me to be happy, healthy and thriving. But the message was, this is how to do it.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:14] Yeah. One way.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:36:15] Yes. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Yeah. And so you felt like. Did you. Do you remember feeling like there must be something wrong with you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:36:24] Oh, totally.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:24] I didn't.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:36:25] Yeah. It was never. Well, why would I want this? It must be, why am I sinful or. So the natural man, you know, wants these things. I should bridle those passions. I should build up better things to be a better mother. I shouldn't necessarily aspire for these other goals in life. Yeah. Like, I very much wanted, thought I wanted to be a schoolteacher because that would be a good job for a mom.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:56] Like, we often ask people what Mormon milestones they envisioned or agreed to in their life.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:37:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] If you can even guess what your teen self, your carnal, devilish, inherent, true teen self, what milestones she would have wanted.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:16] Are you saying that in quotation mark final.

John Dehlin [00:37:18] Sorry, I thought that was clear.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:20] No, I'm Just making it extra clear.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:37:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:24] What milestones would that girl have wanted for herself that might have varied from

Margi Dehlin [00:37:29] the Mormon role, I would say, like in your authenticity, developing self.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] I was joking.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:35] I know, I know. Like, what lit you up?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:37:38] Well, so Mormonism teaches you that you aspire to get married and to get married in the temple, that you're going to marry a returned missionary. And I also. I had it in the back of my head, well, not everybody gets married. One of my aunts, of my dad's sisters is never married. The other three are all divorced.

John Dehlin [00:37:59] So you weren't sure. You were totally on the marriage train.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:38:02] I know that I'm supposed to get married, but there are life circumstances that happen. What if I don't? What if I'm not pretty enough or good enough or whatever? What if these worthy enough? What if this doesn't happen for me?

John Dehlin [00:38:12] Or if the marriage breaks up?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:38:14] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:16] Okay. So marriage was a question mark.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:38:18] Yes. Yeah. And so those were kind of things. Once you get married and start having children, that that's your life and that that's what you're supposed to do. You and your husband are going to go on missions later in life. You're just going to be happy as a family. That's what you're going to do. This family life is what you're creating.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Do you remember having a dream professionally of what maybe you would rather do than school? Teach?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:38:39] Yes. Yes. I had lots of ideas about going to medical school. I love. I don't have a problem with blood,

John Dehlin [00:38:51] you say, I love blood.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:38:52] I know I was about to say that I don't have blood, but when someone gets a cut, I want to see it. What can you see in that body? How did you get that? How does that heal? I'm fascinated by the human body and what the body can do and how we can influence the human body. Very much so. Even when I started college, I still had the thought of, I wonder if I could make this happen.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:13] And.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:39:14] But again, I never did. It wasn't practical or realistic. I actually did become a schoolteacher, but that's not. We're not there yet. So, yeah, as a teenager, that's kind of what I saw. But my mom always worked outside of the home. And there's this part of me that thinks that she didn't want to. I think she did it because she felt like she needed to help provide for the family because she felt like my dad didn't always make enough money, even though he provided a very comfortable living. We never wanted for anything. I mean, some of my siblings may say different, but we were always taken care of and always comfortable. But she always wanted a little bit more. She helped provide things for herself and for my brothers, their sports or whatever by working. So she always worked outside the home.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:03] Yeah, that's an interesting overlay to that. She did work outside the home. And what are some of the jobs she had?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:40:10] So when I was little, she started babysitting other people's kids. There were other kids that would come and be there at our home all day. She is an extremely talented seamstress. And she would often take in sewing projects and she was making things. Then she started house cleaning services and I would often go with her on those. And when I was in junior high, I took over some of her house cleaning jobs.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:31] Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:40:32] So she always did that. And then later she took a job at the local Kmart and worked there as a manager and worked there. My sister and I even worked there during high school. She worked there for a long time. And then she's had other jobs like as secretaries at law firms or electrical companies or that just throughout. She never went to college. And she does regret that because as a Sterling Scholar, she had scholarships available to her.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:56] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:40:56] But she started working and then got married and started a family and never made it to college.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:00] Got it. That makes sense. I am hearing that theme of work.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:41:04] Yeah. You have worked for.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:07] I mean, really since forever.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:41:10] Really.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:10] But eight. Eight. And even it sounds like kind of before that with family work.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:41:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:41:17] Any other aspects? Let's just say in your high school

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:41:20] years that I loved Young Women's. I had a really great young women experience. And I do think something that's a little bit unique is that only because I've been in Young Women since and I've seen my daughter's own experience. The girls that were the older girls, the. The 14, 16, 15 year old girls made friends with us 12 year olds that came in. And so we had this group of young women that were really close. I also, in the first area that we lived in Farmington, there was like one or two girls my age in our ward and all the rest were boys. And this new area that we moved in When I was 11, there were 13 girls my age.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:41:58] And so it was my best. We were all good friends and we had this great young women's experience. We loved our leaders. We had great young women's camps, sports youth conferences. We did a lot. Even when I was young, we still had road shows that we participated in. So the church was Huge in our lives.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] Could you do church sports?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:16] I did, yes.

John Dehlin [00:42:17] So your mom was okay with church sports, just not high school sports?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:20] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:42:21] Well, that's fun.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:22] Church basketball and all that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:25] All right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] So a great youth experience.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:42:28] And I started to build a testimony especially of Heavenly Father and God communicating to me. I really, at that time, I felt like the Spirit was always communicating to me that I particularly could receive insightful communication from the Spirit, whether it was the scriptures. I was always put in leadership positions as a youth. And so I felt like I was very in touch with the Spirit on ways to be a good youth leader and connect with other youth and whatever the job was. So as a.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:43:06] In the young women's organization, each class, I think you have other people that have talked about this. You have the classes that are formed. You have the 12, 13 year olds. You have the 14, 15 year olds and the 16 to 18 year old girls. And so those are all different classes and they always have a presidency. So I was always in presidencies and then the stake, which always has youth. And I often had stake youth callings as well. So I was always in leadership positions as a youth as well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:43:34] And so something that from that point, I learned how to use prayer and the Spirit to really help me with those positions. And then, you know, you start seminary when you're in seventh grade. I like seminary.

John Dehlin [00:43:51] Seventh grade. I started in ninth grade.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:43:53] Ninth grade.

John Dehlin [00:43:53] I started ninth grade.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:43:54] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:43:55] Sometimes it is eighth grade.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:43:56] I don't know. It's probably ninth grade. I'm thinking of that. You're right. It's ninth grade. I misspoke. Ninth grade.

John Dehlin [00:44:03] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:04] So you're starting. You're doing seminary?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:06] Yes. Ninth grade? Yes. My senior year of high school, they were totally redoing our high school. So I went to Davis High School. As you know, it's one of the oldest.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] Davis darts.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:18] Yes. Go darts.

John Dehlin [00:44:20] Did Mindy go to Davis?

Margi Dehlin [00:44:21] I think so.

John Dehlin [00:44:22] Mindy was a Davis dart.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:23] And Shannon Caldwell Montez. We graduated together.

John Dehlin [00:44:27] Oh, you. You and Shannon?

Margi Dehlin [00:44:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:29] Oh, cool.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:30] That's an epic Mormon stories episode series with Shannon Caldwell Montez and B.H. roberts and the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. Check it out.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:44:38] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:44:38] Yes. So, yeah, I reached out to her as well. So during my senior year, they were redoing the high school. And so it was under construction, so we had to. We didn't have seminary in the seminary building. We went to a church building off of the high school campus. So of course that was very easy not to Go to seminary. So very quickly, my seminary teacher recognized, called me as the class president so that I would get myself and my friends to seminary.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:45:07] So that year we were studying the Book of Mormon. I remember that. And I remember having experiences where for me, the Book of Mormon I knew was the book to bring you to Jesus. That's what you needed as another testament of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon would teach you about the atonement of Christ. And I began to fall in love with the Book of Mormon for that.

Book of Mormon Testimony and Mother's Illness

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:45:31] Yeah. But I also had this. I knew also that the Book of Mormon was. My dad was called on a mission to Southwest, like Arizona. So he spent time in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with the Native Americans. And there was also kind of this. Yes, the Book of Mormon claims to be this thing, this history of the Native Americans. But the way they lived and were. It didn't always match up. So even at that time, there was always this thing in the back of my mind was this is what the Book of Mormon claims to be. But in my history classes and everything else, it doesn't always match up. So even then I was holding space for that. Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:14] That feels true from the beginning too, that you're kind of receiving the conditioning. But also your experience is showing you kind of caveats or people that live kind of outside of that optimized Mormon plan reality. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:46:31] You mentioned your outline in 1987, I believe your mom developing.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] Condition rheumatoid arthritis.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:46:41] Rheumatoid arthritis? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:42] You want to tell about how that related to your faith?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:46:45] Yes. So I was about 11 years old or so, and she got very, very sick most of the time. It's pretty hard to diagnose rheumatoid arthritis. You have lots of different health conditions. And she got sick. I had a lot of. Of course, I'm the oldest of the five. And so we all had to step up and kind of fill in where she was having trouble. But eventually she got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. The doctors even tried an experimental procedure on her where I do not understand. I don't know why they did this. Maybe they inject your body with gold and she became allergic to it.

John Dehlin [00:47:21] I remember. Remember our friends, Dana. Yeah, yeah. We have heard of.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:47:26] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:47:27] It sounds like kind of a Utah full holistic, in quotes, health kind of thing.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:47:34] So that was horrible for her.

John Dehlin [00:47:36] It was not good for her.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:47:37] No. I remember her being on the couch. Like she would go from her bed to the couch for weeks trying to recover from that. She had to have multiple surgeries on her feet. She's eventually. Now she has all the knuckles removed from her toes. Her hands are horrible. So. But it was so devastating because it impacted what she was able to do. I mean, here she is, this worker, she works all the time, and now she's impacted physically. But we also all knew my mom's patriarchal blessing told her that as long as she kept the commandments, she would enjoy good health. And everybody knows my mom is an angel. She is one of the most charitable kind, giving people you will ever meet. There is no way she is not keeping a commandment.

John Dehlin [00:48:26] So then that left her and. Or you to wonder, what.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:48:31] What is she doing wrong? What commandment is she not fulfilling?

John Dehlin [00:48:34] So you didn't go to. Maybe the patriarchal blessings aren't true.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:48:37] Nope, nope.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:39] So at that time, it was kind of like, what do I not know?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:48:41] Yes, yes. A few years after that, like, I heard her saying, well, maybe I've been given this affliction to teach your dad a lesson because he needs. Needs to learn compassion. He's not a very compassionate person. And so then she thought, well, maybe this is for your dad that I'm having this hug. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:01] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:02] And I.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:03] What.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:03] What kind of heavenly father does that?

Margi Dehlin [00:49:07] Right. Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:09] So concept of God, a little bit is coming up.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:12] Maybe.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:13] How disruptive was this diagnosis with regard to kind of your life from there? Would you say she was a different or that it affected the way your family and home felt?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:27] Yeah, for a little while.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:28] For a little while.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:29] Yeah. We would get up extra early to make sure we could help get breakfast on the table, fill in doing chores. And that is where my dad totally stepped up. He would come home from work. I always saw him vacuuming, doing laundry. He would help cook dinner.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:49:44] He would take over those kind of things. And he's amazing that way and has never, ever complained about that. It makes her more tired, obviously, all the ways that rheumatoid arthritis is a horrible disease and it affects her health in so many ways. And she pushes through. Never once did she ever come. Well, I mean, I've heard her complain, but she doesn't really complain to other people, you know, about how she's feeling.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:50:11] So she's amazing. But that's definitely. All of us kids look at that and think, God, mom, you've had so many priesthood blessings, you have this patriarchal blessing. There's something going on there that it's. We don't understand.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:24] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] Anything else about pre college before we jump to college? Just that's kind of really tied into your faith journey and Mormon story. Or did we cover the main things?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:50:36] Yeah, I think we've covered.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:37] I have one last question, just because we brought it up earlier, this idea of the feminine.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:50:43] Yes. Part.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:46] So how would you describe your young women's experience with, you know, did you accept the more feminine view? Where, like. I don't know. I don't know. How would you talk about how you felt in more feminine clothes? Your mom dressing you? If your mom had preferences about what you wore and how that felt, did it. Did you become in line with that? Did it feel comfortable? Was it something you were never comfortable with?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:51:15] That's a really good question. Yeah. So I mentioned my mom's a seamstress. So when my sister and I were little, she made all of her clothes. So the Gunny sack dresses, Jessica McClintock dresses. All those dresses. Right. Lots of ruffles and bows. I remember those. Yep. So very 80s, right. So. But that's not my style. But she would sew those, and I. I knew how much time she spent on that, and so I know she does it out of love, and that's. I remember the first time that my sister and I asked her to sew. We wanted pants with tags. We wanted jeans with a tag, you know, because everything she made, you don't put tags on it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:51:55] So she would sew little ribbons on the back of things to show. This is a tag. So like, almost came from the store. Right. So she. Yeah. Like, I didn't get to choose what I looked like for a very long time. She.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:52:10] My sister had very thick hair, and she let my sister grow long hair, and that's very pretty. I had very thin hair when I was a kid.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:16] So she.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:52:16] You have to have short hair because your hair is thin. So I didn't get to choose my hairstyle. I didn't get to choose my clothing. So I remember as a teenager when I started making babysitting money, enough to buy my own clothing, then I would stand in the store. What am I gonna choose? What is my style? Yes. Yes. And it was not feminine or what she would choose.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:39] Yeah. Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:52:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:52:40] Would it have been more sporty or.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:52:42] Yeah. Yeah. I looked very much like all the other girls my age, just not just more muted, probably.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:52] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:52:53] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:54] And did you continue to wear your hair short, thinking that you have thin hair? So I really should wear short?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:53:01] Yep. Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:53:04] Any dating in high school?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:53:06] A little bit. Not much. Very common just to have lots of group dating. Yeah. There were times, like Starting in eighth grade, like I had me and a boy would go steady and hold hands and kiss. And I had certain boy. Various boyfriends through junior high and high school, but nothing really serious.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:53:26] I was always a good girl. I was a very good girl. When I was in young women's. Some of our leaders would always teach us, save your kisses. And they would kiss their hand, save your kisses. Save your kisses. And I remember thinking, okay, that's the way to be. That's how. And I was very conscious of the teaching. Wear clothes now that you could wear with garments that was very big. And I was. I also was very uncomfortable in my own body, and I didn't want to show my body off.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:53:56] I was told that I was bigger for my age, that I just didn't look good in things that were shorter or more revealing. And so I covered myself up all the time, and I just felt like that's what I was supposed to do.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:08] I see.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:54:09] And I did that.

John Dehlin [00:54:10] And we haven't gotten to this part yet, but you're kind of into fitness now, so, I mean, these body issues and gender roles and sports stuff, it ends up being a really important part of your story.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:54:21] Yes, yes. So the fact that my mom would tell me, you have big legs and you don't look good in this or this is what you should be wearing, your body like this. And she knew, like, she dressed beautifully and was beautiful, and so I trusted her. But when I would look around at other people that looked more like my body, I wanted to dress in a different way that would look more comfortable for me. And she didn't ever see that. I felt like she was trying to make me fit in, to conform to her. And again, I believe my mother had the very best intentions. Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:55:00] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:01] It is interesting, though, because I think for all that we talk about faith, deconstruction, and all that means to identity relationships, or I can only imagine you having to deconstruct some of these beliefs that you accepted Right. As you grew up, or these scripts that oftentimes stay with us for a while.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:55:24] Yes. I do recall, like, my parents would often point out, this person's beautiful. And this person and I very much looked around at other women. We had this neighbor that she was very tall, what you would call big boned. She was beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:42] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:55:43] She was not a little person. And I very quickly could identify. There is so much that goes into saying a person is beautiful or beauty and all body shapes and sizes are beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:56] Absolutely. You felt that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:55:58] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:58] Like, when do you remember feeling that was that kind of very young.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:56:02] I remember not thinking that, but thinking why. But my parents had such a narrow view, seemingly to me at that time of beauty. And it was this. My dad is all. My dad was very much taking care of his body. He had a lot of pride in how fit he was. And part of the reason he has Parkinson's now, that's very devastating to him because that physical fitness is gone.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:26] Absolutely.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:56:26] But he spent a lot of time exercising and taking care of himself. And with access to gardens and orchards. We ate well. We didn't have a lot of processed food around. We grew up on good food, so nutrition was. And I remember them kind of looking down on people that would drink a lot of soda or not eat right. And we had lots of baked goods as well. My mom was very good at baking. But the idea of good foods nourishing your body was a big theme to us. So the word of wisdom was really important as well.

John Dehlin [00:57:00] Which is the Mormon health code.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:02] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] No tea, no alcohol, no coffee, no tobacco.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:57:05] What about meat? Sparingly.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:07] Yeah. Meat sparingly. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:09] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:09] But that was another thing. When my mom was diagnosed with arthritis. One of the recommendations for arthritis is to drink green tea. You eat an anti inflammatory diet. You also don't eat nightshade. So no more tomatoes. We grew a lot of tomatoes. No more potatoes. We grew those. You stay away from those nightshade type foods. And you have to eat certain types of foods. Meat like salmon and fish. We didn't grow that. I mean you any. But anyways, that was just something that started opening up my eyes to the word of wisdom. Huh. Like. Yeah. Where did this come from and why this? So, yep.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] Love it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:48] Yeah.

High School, College, and Early Adulthood

John Dehlin [00:57:48] Should we go to college?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:49] Let's do it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:57:51] Yeah. So I graduated. I was a really good student in high school. That was one of the things that I felt like I could control. I loved excelling at school, so I did really well. But also, Davis High is a very competitive school. And so in order to stand out, like, you'd have to be the best in anything. It's a huge school, so I didn't really stand out in a lot of things, but I was going. I was going to go to the University of Utah, live at home, go to school, and just go from there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:58:27] That summer before school started, my dad's youngest sister came to my parents and asked if I would consider going to Snow college. She was a coach there. She coached women's volleyball and basketball. Her assistant had been hired by BYU to coach basketball there. She couldn't find a replacement and said she would offer me a scholarship if I would come and work for her and do all of her administrative work and she could just focus on coaching. And my parents absolutely said no. I don't think that they wanted me to live with her at that time specifically, she was not that active in the church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:59:01] Was she in her 30s? She's 16 years older than me, so it's not like she was very old. She had this greatest lifestyle. She was so active in the outdoors. She traveled a lot. She just made life fun. And all of us, all of her nieces and nephews loved her. We loved her a lot. So the idea that she was seeking me out to come and live with her and work for her was very exciting. I was very like, wow, that would be so amazing. I never even thought about that. And one of my cousins was going to play volleyball for her and we could be roommates.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:59:36] And so my parents said no, but I overheard the conversation and so I went and said, well, I would love to do this. And my dad said, absolutely not. It's against you. I want you to go to the University of Utah where you're going to get a good education. Snow College isn't. You're not going to get a good education there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [00:59:54] So that's when I learned finally, if I go and pray about this and I get an answer, a confirmation that this is what I'm supposed to do, what are they going to say? And so I did that. I said, this is what I'm supposed to do. I feel like I'm supposed to go

John Dehlin [01:00:06] there and weaponized the Holy Ghost.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:00:09] Exactly. My dad said fine, but he wasn't happy about it and he let me know that. So my mom drove me down there. I graduated in June and in July she drove me down there. So I started working for my aunt already in July. They bring the volleyball players and the football players on campus for the summer. And so that's who was there. My aunt had built a home where she lived upstairs and 12 of the athletes lived down.

John Dehlin [01:00:37] Oh, wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:00:38] So I got to live there. She didn't charge me rent. I got a scholarship. So I left Snow College with no debt. That was amazing.

John Dehlin [01:00:47] With the associates or bachelor's?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:00:49] Yeah, an associate. I think you now get a bachelor's degree. But at that time it was a two year school.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:54] Got it.

John Dehlin [01:00:54] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:00:55] So I absolutely loved it. I loved being away from my parents and being able to make my own choices. My aunt very quickly let me. I bought a mountain Bike. I didn't have a car and started mountain biking, and that was going to be my transportation. And, yeah, Snow College offers all these classes like mountain biking, rock climbing, canoe. I took all of those classes.

John Dehlin [01:01:20] Fun.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:20] Yeah. That is amazing. Can we have just a moment for. I feel like in your story, though, all the way through, you've had these moments of differentiation.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:01:29] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:29] Of kind of listening to your yourself and managing. Kind of managing what you want versus what is kind of being told to you. But this is a big one where you knew kind of what you wanted. You went. And also you kind of had the experience. It sounds like that you really hoped for.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:01:48] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:49] Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:01:50] So I absolutely loved my time there. Snow College at that time was smaller than my high school, and I loved how intimate it was like with the professors. There was some of these professors. So I loved English and science, and I took a lot of those classes in high school. So I took these English and literature classes. We would read these books, and our teachers then would take us out often to the places like we read Desert Solitaire. So then we took a trip to Edward Abbey Classic. Yes. We took a trip to Moab and to Capitol Reef, and we would read the books and we would hike and talk about these areas.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:27] That's so ideal.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:02:28] We read A River Runs Through It. So we went to a river and had someone come show us how to fly fish.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:34] Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:02:35] Yes. We read poetry and would often. Just this idea of outdoor literature. I loved it.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:43] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:02:43] So I became then aware of things like that. And the professors, with our class sizes being so small, we would go to their home and we would have meals with them. And my aunt also, many of the professors knew her and they lived around her. And so being her niece then, it was kind of this extra special. Oh, you're her niece. You know, So I worked in the athletic office as well for the football team and the basketball team. I got to do a lot of work for all those coaches, and it was a great experience in leadership. And I would travel with the teams and I would keep score, and I learned so much about the sports that way. So I just experienced a lot of growth.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:21] So exciting. Yeah. And again, another unique experience. I feel like for. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:03:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] You kind of listen to yourself and were rewarded.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:03:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:03:30] You advocated for yourself.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:03:32] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:03:32] And we're rewarded for it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:03:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:03:34] So many of these stories, like, we were. We were talking about the. The Ruby and Kevin, Frankie yesterday. And Kevin felt Jody Hildebrandt was leading a cult. That was his immediate response. But then he shoves it down and. And then it destroys his family. You know what I mean? So cool you were able to listen to yourself and advocate for yourself.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:03:54] Yeah. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:03:57] Anything about faith or dating in your snow years that's worth mentioning.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:04:02] So I stopped going to church.

John Dehlin [01:04:04] Whoa. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:04:05] That is a little faith. But the girls that were in the student ward there, I remember them visiting me, the relief society president, and inviting me to come to church. And I remember saying, yeah, if I get the opportunity. Like, my aunt would often take trips on the weekend. By that time, my grandparents actually had moved to Tocarville, and she never being married, she loved to go and visit her parents. And so we often took trips down to Tocreville on the weekend where I could do so much mountain Biking in St. George and Zion Canyon and would have a blast. So it wasn't like I was, like, making a choice to not on Sunday, not necessarily go to church, but we were just doing other things.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:48] That's right. Your life was so full of, like, all the love and joy that you were anticipating and wanting for yourself.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:04:56] So when we'd visit my grandparents, I would attend church with them in their ward, or if I went home, I would go to church there. But I didn't become active in that student ward. They did give me a calling of teaching, and I. I do remember teaching a couple of lessons, and it was fine, but I didn't know anybody in the ward. You know, is there any testimony stuff

John Dehlin [01:05:18] going on or not?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:05:19] It was stagnant. I would say it was stagnant.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:05:22] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:22] But your life. What I hear is kind of. Your life was kind of so full at that time that really, it just was kind of crowded out.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:05:30] Yes. So I did date. Start dating in college more than I did in high school. I did date a boy that came home from a mission and wanted to get married. The experience of. I feel like we're supposed to get married. The spirit tells me that we're gonna get married, and it's you. Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] And I'd like to inform you exactly.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:05:51] You may not know this, but I

Margi Dehlin [01:05:52] was informed on behalf of you. Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:05:55] So I did take that. Like, wow, he just got home from his mission. I do respect this kid. Let me go pray about it. So this is funny. I opened the scriptures. The scripture that I opened to was the one that says, be engaged in a good cause. And I was, like, engaged? I'm supposed to get engaged. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] Anxiously engaged.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:06:15] Anxiously engaged in a good cause.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:16] That's it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:06:17] So I went to him and I said, okay, I think this I Could get engaged to you, but I don't want to get married yet

John Dehlin [01:06:25] because it says engagement, not marriage.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:06:27] Yeah. And so he was like, okay, let's talk about this. So we were kind of in this limbo for a couple weeks of where I was like, I think we can get engaged. I think we can go this route, but I'm not sure. And again. So then I went again to that scripture, and I was like, this is. No, I have something good that I'm supposed to do instead. And I'm not. Like I said to him, I'm not saying I'm not to marry you. I just know I'm not to do it yet. But he didn't want to hear that. Six weeks later, he got engaged to somebody else.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:55] As it goes sometimes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:06:57] Yes. So it was kind of this place with my testimony where I was kind of stagnant. It wasn't really growing, but I still. I knew how to listen to the spirit for me. Right. And it was mostly this thing of this is what I want to do. I'm going to proceed with this. This seems good. And until the spirit comes and tells me I'm not to do this, I'm going to go this direction.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:18] Got it. What I'm also seeing is you're. You actually are using this time to develop an identity.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:07:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:25] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:26] Like you're in touch with what brings you alive, what makes you happy.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:07:31] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:31] Right. Seeing the world because you're traveling with.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:07:34] Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:35] And we minimize that because it's not like on the Mormon train. That's pretty important for human development.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:41] Yes. For psychology, for mental health.

John Dehlin [01:07:45] So I'm. I'm happy for you so far in your story.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:07:49] Yeah. Yes. I loved that time. It was fantastic. So by the time that I graduated from Snow College and I still have this, my dad wrote me a little teeny note, and he wrote on there, I'm proud of you, Jenny. And that meant to me, I did a good thing. He saw that Snow College was good for me. I graduated. I took. I had to get permission every semester to take extra credit to make sure that I had this academic experience that would make him proud. And I did. I would take 21, 22, 23 credits every term just so I could have a great academic experience there.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:29] Wow. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:30] That's great.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:08:30] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:31] That's a full load on top of a full life.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:08:34] Yeah. Yep. But I loved it. So it was there I started taking a lot of biology classes that I took this class where we read the Origin of Species by Darwin. And the guy that Our professor that taught it was in one of the student ward bishoprics. And that was my first exposure to people that had this academic look, but also this church. And it was almost this conflict. And so I was really curious, how do they reconcile this worldly, scientific view with their beliefs? This guy did it very well. And I loved the class. We would actually sit around this huge conference table for our class and discuss the things that we read in the Origin of Species. And I loved that.

John Dehlin [01:09:24] I had that experience at byu. Okay, a lot of faithful but science loving professors.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:09:30] And I did too, because when I went to byu, I graduated in earth and space science education. So same thing. And my professors were just, just amazing.

John Dehlin [01:09:41] So I know from your outline you worked some after snow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:09:45] Yeah. So I didn't know exactly what I was going to do afterwards. So I moved up to Salt Lake City and I worked. My friend was already working at an accounting firm, so I got a job there and I started taking night classes at the University of Utah. So I continued to stay really active. I got more into mountain biking, specifically taking classes at the University of Utah. I took institute classes and poetry classes and English classes and then worked full time during the day in an accounting firm and just was saving my money.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:10:19] And I did not like our singles ward in Farmington. There was a lot of older people that were like the same age as my aunts and uncles. And so it felt very old and I didn't like it. So I didn't know where to go to church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:10:38] My home ward called me as a camp leader at that time. So I did young women's camp. I loved doing young women's and that was a good fit for me because of how much I loved camping and girls camp. That was cool. So I liked that. But it was really this limbo kind of experience. I didn't know what to do.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:57] So.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:10:58] And I don't exactly remember how I came to it, but I decided to go on a mission.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:03] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:11:04] Again, I knew I could have this experience. I knew that it was. I could get out of Utah, get out of. And it was a way that my parents would accept and be supportive of if I went on a mission. So I started just working and saving everything in order to prepare to go on a mission.

Serving a Mission in Independence, Missouri

John Dehlin [01:11:23] So, yeah, and let's just hit maybe the main points of your mission that would be most important to your story or most interesting to the listeners.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:11:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:11:33] So I guess temple first, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:11:36] Yeah. So I do remember the whole process of putting my papers in and getting ready to go on a Mission. I do remember the stake president and my bishop making sure I had no marriage prospects. Like, it wasn't just like, oh, you want to go on a mission? Great. It was, are you sure? You have to really think about this. So, I mean, that was in the mid-90s, right? Mid to late 90s. So it was still kind of this thing of there are not that many girl missionaries, sister missionaries. So my birthday's in May, but I got my mission call sometime at the beginning of April.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:12:17] And because I was certain I would go to a place that would be physically hard, like central South America, Africa, something like this. And I had this real desire to go to Africa. I just thought that seemed so beautiful. So when I got my mission call and I was called to Missouri Independence Mission, my initial thought was, dis, man. But then you also have this relief. Well, I'm in the States. This is going to be great, right? It's going to be okay. The other thing, immediately, one of my dad's sisters and their cousin had already served in that mission.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:12:53] One of our neighbors who he had been one of our bishops, served in that mission as well. And my mission president was from Farmington. And I'd already heard that so and so's dad got called to be the mission president in the Missouri Independence Mission. And then I got a call there. So I felt like this is either too coincidental or maybe God knows what he's doing.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:13:16] So already this idea of I didn't know how mission calls were given out, but I thought it was interesting that an aunt and a sister, cousin, two sister missionaries from my family that went on missions, two of the women got called to that mission. It was interesting. So that was for those who don't

John Dehlin [01:13:38] know, also maybe tell our never Mormons why Independence, Missouri is interesting from a Mormon perspective.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:13:45] So the church spends a lot of money on developing its historical sites, the places that were big in the church history. So Palmyra, New York, Vermont, where Joseph Smith lived and grew up, the church owned those properties. They have visitor centers there. You can go and visit his boyhood homes and things. Independence, Missouri was big in the early church history. So to if. If you're going to stay stateside, how cool is it to go to a place that's big in our church history? And for a sister missionary, I was called to serve in the visitor center. So in all of these historical sites, the church spends a lot of money to have these beautiful places where visitors can come and learn the church history.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:14:29] Now, make no mistake, they are missionary tools. But as part of that, you can learn the history of the church that occurred in that place. So as part of my call, it says not only are you called to serve in the Missouri Independence Mission, but you will also serve as a sister in the visitor center in that area.

John Dehlin [01:14:44] And tell our never Mormons why there would be a Mormon visitor center in Independence, Missouri, what role Independence, Missouri plays in Mormon history.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:14:52] Okay. So Joseph Smith supposedly received a revelation saying that Independence was going to be the new Jerusalem. This was going to be the church headquarters. And so very early in the church, he started sending people there to buy property, to live there, to establish a presence there in Independence, Missouri. It did not work out at that time. They did buy a lot of property. But through your history, you've talked about the extermination order that Governor Boggs issued. And so the church members had to leave Independence. They went farther up in northern Missouri and eventually had to leave.

John Dehlin [01:15:25] They were run out of Missouri.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:15:27] Yes. So I was called to go work in this. Serve in this visitor center. And so that was exciting.

John Dehlin [01:15:35] Tell people what Adam Ondial was his and what Joseph Smith said also about Missouri, besides.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:15:42] So you have quite a few sites in Missouri. So you have Independence, which is where the temple lot was supposed to be. The headquarters was supposed to be built, and that's where the visitor center is. If you go there today, though, you have the Missouri Independence Visitor Center, Mormon Visitor center there. Then you have the temple lot church, and you have the RLDS church are kind of in this main area in Independence.

John Dehlin [01:16:04] And literally, Jesus, when he came for the second coming, was supposed to come to that temple in Independence, Missouri. Am I right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:16:12] Yes, you are correct.

John Dehlin [01:16:13] While the church has a headquarters there.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:15] And it's still. I think the church has really worked hard to just downplay and de emphasize this doctrine.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:16:22] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] But when I was growing up, people were moving back to Independence, anticipating the second coming of Jesus, and they were just waiting for the church to announce that they were going to build a temple there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:16:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:34] Because that would mean Jesus was nigh.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:16:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:36] Does that sound right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:16:37] That is exactly right. Yes. And I can tell you, I'm not making that up. No. I can tell you more experiences that confirm that as a missionary. One of the ladies we met and ran into was a real estate agent. She said, you have no idea. I have a direct line to. She gave me the name of this man in your church office building in Salt Lake City that every time I picked piece of property comes available, he's the first person I call. She would say, you have no idea how much property your church owns here at Independence. So even from Independence, you go farther north and you have this area called Far West. It's outside of this little town of Cameron, and there's a temple site dedicated there. There's this beautiful monument to that Hans Mill is just down the road from that.

John Dehlin [01:17:16] Where a bunch of Mormons were massacred.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:17:18] Yes, yes. And that piece of property at that time, I think, was still owned by the RLDS Church, now known as the Common Community Church of Christ. There were people that lived out there that would often let us out on the property and we could go there. I had great experiences there at Far West. And then Farther north didn't.

John Dehlin [01:17:37] When Brigham Young went west with the pioneers. That's a place they stopped on the way.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:17:42] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [01:17:43] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:17:43] So and then farther north is Adam Ondiamond. And the church has. There are markers there where you can go out there, but they also have buildings there like missionaries. Senior missionaries are called there. The women do, like, extraction family history work, and the men do a lot of outdoor work there. But it's just this beautiful grassy field. It is a gorgeous place. Have you ever been there?

John Dehlin [01:18:04] No.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:18:04] Okay. So it is rumored there that Joseph Smith said that there is an altar. This is where Lehi spoke to his children before he died. And this is also where Adam spoke to his people before he died. And this is where Jesus will come again.

John Dehlin [01:18:22] So, like, so that's where the joke in the Book of Mormon musical that the Garden of Eden is in Missouri. Jackson County, Missouri. That's the Adam on diamond. Joseph basically just said, this place is so beautiful. Before, I guess, what, the continent separated or whatever. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was here, which is kind of a bold pronouncement.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:44] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:18:45] And wasn't there another prophet, David O. McKay, that even went there and that confirmed that?

John Dehlin [01:18:49] I don't even know. I wouldn't be surprised. But also, I didn't realize that Joseph Smith put Lehigh, because that would pretty much kill the Mesoamerican theory that the Book of Mormon happened in Central America. And that would bolster the Rod Meldrum Heartland theory that the Book of Mormon happened.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:19:13] And maybe it's not necessarily Lehi, but we knew as missionaries, a Nephite altar is what. So whether that was Lehi or Moroni or somebody. But yeah, Nephite altar.

John Dehlin [01:19:23] Did the name Zelf ever come up? Zelf the White Lamanite?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:19:26] Yeah, I had heard that as well,

John Dehlin [01:19:29] that Joseph found some bones and declared it to be Zelf the White Lamanite.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:19:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:34] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:19:34] So even though you go there as a missionary. Well, okay, so I get my mission call. Okay, so we'll start the there. And I'm going to this place. I'm very, I am excited now to go there as part before you go on your mission, then you get to go through the temple.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:19:52] So with sisters, they again, they like to, oh, are you going to have a marriage prospect? So they don't want you to go to the temple until a week before you go into the mtc. I wanted to go. I got my call at the beginning of April. I wasn't leaving to go to the MTC until June. So I had all this time that I was like, well, why can't I continue to go to the temple? So I begged and begged my bishop and stake president to let me go in April. And they finally consented, relented, let me go to the temple because I wanted to go multiple times before I went into the mtc.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:20:23] So I did. I remember I went through the bountiful temple on April 19, and I still remember the experience. My mom, she had her grandmother's temple clothes. So she got her temple clothes out and laid them out on her bed so that I could see them and have an idea of what the temple clothes were going to look like. And she said she wanted to do that because it was such a shock to her when she went through the temple of the clothing and the things that you do that she wanted to make it better for me. So she at least showed me the clothes. And of course, when you see the clothes, you're like, what?

John Dehlin [01:20:57] What was different about them?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:20:58] So the first thing you notice is this green apron that has leaves embroidered on it. And at the time, she didn't necessarily tell me what it was going to be, but it's to represent the leaves that Adam and Eve put on to hide their nakedness. Right. And then it's a white dress and you have a robe that you're going to put on your shoulders that are called the priesthood garments. You tie them in a certain way. You have a sash that goes around your waist and a veil. And so all of these things that you're going to wear. It looks like a weird bridal outfit with a green apron and a veil. A veil? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:32] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:21:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:21:33] Are they called robes of the Holy Priesthood or something like that?

Margi Dehlin [01:21:36] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:21:36] And it's literally Masonic. If you want to just Google Masonic clothing. It's basically 19th century Masonic clothing fit for a woman with a green apron.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:21:46] And at that time, I didn't know. But later, as a young adult, I actually visited Boston, and I went and visited a Masonic temple there. And they had the same outfit.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:56] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:21:56] Yeah. So, yeah. So I got to go to the temple. And I know my parents came with me, some of my aunts and uncles. I don't remember exactly who, but I do remember there being quite a few adults there with me. And they were very excited and happy for me to go through the temple. The experience of going to buy garments, that was traumatizing.

John Dehlin [01:22:16] Why?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:22:17] So you go into what's called the distribution center, and it's. There's little old ladies there. They take your measurements, and then they tell you the size of garments to wear. They gave me these garments that I couldn't even fit my jeans over them, which contributed to, oh, my gosh, I have to get even bigger pants to fit over my garments. So they put these garments on me and they just were too big.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:44] That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:22:45] But that's what they said, according to the measurements, this is your size. But they did not enter. And in that time, in the late 90s, we were wearing baggy clothes. We were not wearing skinny jeans. We were wearing baggy clothes. And they didn't fit in my clothes. They were thick and hot and uncomfortable.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:23:03] But that's what I'm supposed to do. This is what God wants, and this is how I'm going to dress. These are ugly, but who cares? They're protective. They're going to protect me as a missionary. So this is what I get to wear.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:23:17] Yay. Okay, so there's that. So then we go to the temple. And I mean, I think the temples are beautiful. Bountiful Temple was fairly new at that time, and that was just the temple district that we lived in. So that's why we went there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:23:37] But I remember wanting to go to Salt Lake to have that experience, because that was a live experience versus at the Bountiful Temple. It's a video. So went there. The first thing. Like, you still walk into different rooms in the Bountiful Temple, even though it was videos.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:23:56] Like, you didn't just stay in the same room. I think you walked up to a couple different rooms for each of the different. Like, you start out in the Lower Kingdom room, and then you move into different rooms for the. I think there were two rooms, though, like they had a tea lesson. Then the telestial room and then the celestial room. So men sit on one side, women on the other. You watch this video and listen. And I remember the first thing that came to my mind in watching this was that the video portrays God and Jesus Christ creating the world together. And in Mormonism, you are taught that in this next life you will be creating worlds with yours spouse, with your husband. That a husband and wife create their own planets after this.

Garments, Gender, and Mission Experiences

John Dehlin [01:24:43] Gods and goddesses.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:24:44] Yeah. So you're sitting there watching, wait, God and Jesus and this other guy Michael

John Dehlin [01:24:52] helped create, which is Adam as an angel, basically.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:24:56] Yeah. And so you're sitting there just like, oh, I guess I got it wrong. This is not. I guess I misunderstood the scriptures and I misunderstood what the church was teaching. This is what is happening. So then every time I would go to the temple, I would sit there and listen so closely to try to pick up on ways that I had been misinformed and what they're trying to teach me here.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] Where's mother? In heaven.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:25:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] Right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:25:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:25:23] And where will I be?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:25:24] Yes, yes. And you just, you see Eve, who has made this decision and gets Adam to make this decision and they're cast out and then she has to obey him. And I hated that. And the thought of always having to defer to my husband for his decisions and never trusting my own, because the hearken language.

John Dehlin [01:25:47] Do you want to explain what that was?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:25:49] That I would hearken to my husband and he would hearken to God.

John Dehlin [01:25:53] These are covenants you would have made.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:25:54] Yeah. You promised God that you will make these covenants.

John Dehlin [01:25:57] And so your husband's covenanting with God, but you're covenanting with your husband as he covenants with God.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:26:05] Yeah. And at this time, I'm not going through the temple because I'm getting married in a week or two. I'm making these promises about somebody. I have no idea who that's going to be.

John Dehlin [01:26:14] You don't even have a fiance.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:26:16] Yeah. And in my mind, I'm also thinking about all these women that I know that are never married, that are in their 30s and 40s and never or older and never married. So are they just left out in the cold?

Margi Dehlin [01:26:28] Yeah. You're like, so where. How does their link to God actually happen? They're missing a link.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:26:33] Yeah. Yes. And these women are women that I know as some of the most spiritually in touch women, and yet they don't get access to God unless they have a husband. I very much did not like that. Yeah, very much.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] And then you had to veil your face.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:26:50] Yeah. Then you veil your face to pray. Yeah. Women have to veil your face, but men don't. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yes. I thought that was so weird and wondered why Outside the temple. Do you not have to veil your face if this is so important here? I did think that was interesting, but then again you go, well, it's just this is what we do in the Temple. We have our rituals outside the temple. We have rituals inside the temple. I very much could see Catholics also. I knew Catholic family, they had some rituals. Jewish families, they have their own rituals. Just kind of all these rituals together and just thought Mormons have their own rituals. Just some of ours are very secret.

John Dehlin [01:27:26] Yeah. Going back to garments for a second, you mentioned in your notes body dysmorphia. Do you want to explain how those

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:27:35] connected garments make you feel bigger than you are and that your body is not to be seen by anybody? Some women have no problem with garments. I feel like my mom loves them and loves to wear them. I hated them from the get go. They make you sweaty in parts you don't want to be sweaty. They're not comfortable. They don't fit over your chest in a comfortable way. They don't fit under your clothes. You're always pulling your clothes. I hate the thought that I have to put on clothes and then I'm continually messing with it. I want to put on clothes and not think about them.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:16] Me too.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:28:16] Yes. And so garments make you. I'm always pulling my shirt. I'm always tucking my shirt. I'm always pulling my pants. I'm always pulling the sleeves. It's. You're conscious all the time of. Are my garments showing?

Margi Dehlin [01:28:29] And they move around.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:28:30] They do.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:32] And then. So underneath your clothes, you have like little bunches or little. Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:28:37] They make everything look not smooth. They make everything look bigger or bulkier than it is. And I already felt big and bulky.

John Dehlin [01:28:48] Yeah. Really quickly. Just as a side Note, this is 20, 25, March. Just a week or two ago, they announced major changes to the women's garments where they now don't have sleeves and so women can wear, I don't know, cute tank tops or whatever. I don't know what the language is. But clothes that you never were allowed or supposed to wear. Shoulders like you're showing now. You could probably literally wear that top now and wear Mormon garments under it, whereas before you would. Does that make you happy or angry or both?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:29:28] It's so complicated.

John Dehlin [01:29:29] Or neither. Do you not care?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:29:31] Oh, I care. Very much so. Because we'll get into this. As a Relief Society president, I talked about garments all the time with women. For me, garments always came up too high. I was always having to add an extra thing under my shirts. I Could never wear V neck shirts because garments always showed. And I always tried different sizes and different colors, cuts, and different fabrics called shades. Yep. Shade shirts. Or little things that you would snap onto your bra just to cover up so that they would always come up like this. Yeah, it's always an issue. I remember my brother got married and his wife chose these.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:30:07] She's a never Mormon, so she chose these beautiful dresses that were sleeveless. I had to have mine altered with sleeves and an insert here so that I could wear my garments. And I remember being in the room changing, and all her other bridesmaids are like, staring, what the heck is she wearing? And now I was like, why did I just not take them off? Why did I mess that up for her? You know, visually, in her pictures, I could have just not worn the garment top for the couple of hours that I wore that dress. But that was not an option, right? Yeah, not an option.

John Dehlin [01:30:39] So I guess when you go through that body dysmorphia or the discomfort or the inconvenience of accommodating these weird religious undergarments that are being imposed on you, when you then see 20 or 30 years later, the church going, never mind, now we're going to make garments that aren't as weird and awkward and uncomfortable.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:31:00] Well, all of a sudden you are like, well, it didn't matter in the first place. Yeah. And women in sport, it's another issue with garments. Women over the years have come to me, do you wear? So I am a personal trainer. That is what I do. And I'm a mountain bike coach. Women come to me all the time asking, is it okay not to wear my garments during sport? And like, I tell them, biking, when you ride a bike, biking shorts are made that you don't wear anything between you and that chamois. Right. All the problems in the world. And so for me to tell women it's okay to take these off, some women were like, thank you, I just needed to know.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:31:36] Or some women, I don't agree with that. I had women that would come to me, will you please come talk to our young women about when it's appropriate to wear your garments and when it's not. I notice you don't wear them when you work out all the time or, you know, I do social media to promote my business, and I'm clearly not wearing garments when I'm in my exercise clothes. So it's a topic of conversation from the moment I put garments on until now. It is something that comes up every single day still.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:01] Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just say, I mean, wearing garments while working out, there's an increase in infections that you're sweating into. And oftentimes the materials that garments are made of, they're not breathable to begin with.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:32:19] So it can be deeply dangerous.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:22] It can be really deeply problematic for women.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:32:24] They are not made to stretch and move the way the athletic clothing do. So they can inhibit your movements, they heat your body temperature up greater, and they are not. It is not actually white material. It's white dye. And so that influences the most sensitive parts of your body in a very negative way. Yes. And it wasn't until I was a Relief Society president that I learned there's actually other options. There is a whole special department for special garment requests that when you. If you're allergic to a certain fabric, you don't like the lace, you don't like the tail, you get to call this special place. And they can make custom order garments.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:04] Interesting. Is that on the down low?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:33:06] No. Yes. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:08] Never heard of that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:33:09] Yeah, but I didn't know that until I was a Relief Society president and had women that had the issues that garments were causing with their bodies. And then I started to figure out, what do we do about this? I started to think about, what do people with like that are in a wheelchair or can't walk, what do they do? What do women.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:28] There are certain skin conditions where it's like, it's so irritated.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:33:32] So finally I went to our stake Relief Society president and she was like, I don't know. So she inquired above her and we found this special. You have to call and you tell them. You give your measurements and you tell them your issues. And they make special garments out of special fabrics, special cuts, whatever.

John Dehlin [01:33:48] It's almost like that's for, like, wealthy or powerful or connected, you know, insiders. Because if you had to go through all that work to figure this out, there's a gazillion Mormon women that didn't

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:34:02] have any access to.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:03] Would have never known about it regularly

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:34:05] that just don't have access because there are men in charge. They don't think about those things. For women, they think we're being whiny about that.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] But also, if the exceptions exist but no one knows about it, it's got to be for the privileged, connected few. I don't know.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:20] I wonder. I mean, I do think it's interesting at byu, as someone who did sports at byu, like, our coach would talk about how many complaints would come in when we were training around campus because

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:34:34] we wore, like, you're running short

Margi Dehlin [01:34:39] in Utah for training. Kendall RM Run, who went through the temple, who were on the team, didn't wear garments when they were training. But I just thought it was a really interesting thing that people would complain as we were training that we weren't being, you know, modest to garment and he just would not have it. None of the sports teams wore garments in training. So byu. That's an interesting kind of. It is.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:04] You're right.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:04] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:05] But they don't like to. BYU doesn't. BYU wants to stand out in certain ways, but not in all the ways they don't want it. They allow their teams to wear the uniform that other schools are wearing. Right. That look like.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:17] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:18] So I think as other people in sport, we can kind of take that as the standard as, like, I'm going to wear what other people in this sport are wearing as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:27] That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:27] And there's lots of Mormon athletes out there as well, you know, that are vocal on this topic, so.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:33] That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:34] By no means do I consider myself a pro athlete, but an athlete is anyone who exercises intentionally. So it influences our life. Yeah. And affects us.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:46] So there's like two pages in your outline about your mission. So clearly your mission meant a lot to you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:35:51] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:35:52] For the sake of time, maybe I'll cherry pick just a couple things that I think would be particularly interesting. If there's something really important from your mission to your faith journey, I want you to also interject it. Is that okay?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:36:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:04] Okay. So one thing that really comes out is you were of kind. Kind of a dynamite sister missionary.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:36:09] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:36:09] To the point where I think you even got promoted in an abnormal way. Do you want to tell that story, really?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:36:15] Sure. Well, from the beginning of even going into the mtc, I was assigned as the sister district leader in the mtc. So sisters that are going to visitor centers and historical sites get an extra week in the mtc. So you have your three weeks that you're there learning all the proselyting and things like that, and then you have time. Every visitor center has a script that you learn, and you're given a specific amount of history and things that you're going to say there. So we have an extra week. So I was in a district of 12 sisters. We would go to classes with. We had elders that were kind of like our sister districts, but I was in a district with 12 sisters, and I was the district leader over those sisters.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:36:54] So that was kind of a new thing at that time. And going into the mission Field. Then I heard back a couple of weeks later that Elder Faust then was like, we are not having sister district leaders. No more of that.

John Dehlin [01:37:07] He was an apostle.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:37:08] He was. Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [01:37:11] And first presidency member, actually.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:37:12] Yeah. Yes, eventually. And I loved him.

John Dehlin [01:37:14] He didn't like that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:37:15] No.

John Dehlin [01:37:15] But he was a good guy.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:16] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:37:17] As far as I knew, he didn't like that, but he was a good guy. Yes. So, yes, I was a leader. I loved the mtc. I thought it was a great experience. Great experience with the sisters, the elders. I learned a lot and loved it. So then I get to the mission field in July, and that was. Right. My mission president was new at that time. That's right. When new mission presidents go out is in July. So we basically came to the mission field together. He was from Farmington. He had kids my own age. I knew his family. He was from ces. I love my mission president. He is amazing. His wife is this cute little lady from Texas. Very proper. I know she went to finishing school.

John Dehlin [01:38:00] Tell us what that is.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:02] I think she learned how to sit like a lady, dress like a lady, and act like a lady.

John Dehlin [01:38:06] And finishing school is a thing in Utah where moms send their daughters and probably dads send their daughters.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:11] Yeah. Not in Utah. Texas. She was from Texas.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] Oh, Utah is that too.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:15] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:15] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:16] But Utah has it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:17] But Texas.

John Dehlin [01:38:18] Yeah, it makes sense.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:19] In Texas as well.

John Dehlin [01:38:21] Okay, got it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:22] So one of the things that was very. As you're preparing for the mission, you want to know what clothes to buy. So the mission, they send you a packet, and they have pictures of how you're supposed to dress as missionaries. So before that time, the sister missionaries in Missouri did not dress. This was. They were transitioning. They wanted sister missionaries to start looking professional and matching the elders in their suits. So sisters before that time kind of dressed drab and baggy and didn't look

Margi Dehlin [01:38:51] like they're kind of more prairie.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:52] Yes, yes. I'm trying. I don't know the word exactly.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:55] With long skirts, with kind of blousy, like, very.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:38:58] No shape to them. Yeah. So they started wanting sister missionaries to look like they matched elders who were wearing white shirts and ties and slacks. Right. So they came out with these pictures of four sisters, how to look. And especially in the visitor centers, they wanted the sister to look a certain way. So I do think this. Me working in an accounting office and the way that I looked may have had some reason why I was called to a visitor center. I had this professional experience.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:39:28] One of the accountant's wives sold Mary Kay and she had me come and did. I know Mark is laughing, did this makeover on me. And I learned how to do makeup for the first time in my life. So I show up in the mission field, and I have makeup on. I have lipstick on. My mission president pulls me and my companion into his office, and he looks at both of us and he says, sister Jepsen, you have lips gone, sister. Next week, this decree comes out. All sisters wear lipstick. Everybody is supposed to. All sister wear.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:57] Interesting.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:39:57] And when you go to the visitor center, you're supposed to have lipstick with you and reapply it. The sisters are so mad at me, but, like, it's all because of you, right? But it was this idea of sisters need to match the message. Missionaries need to look professional. It was at this time they made missionaries. You couldn't carry a backpack anymore. You had to have that side bag so that you looked more professional, more like a briefcase kind of looking. And that was a big deal because you're walking around all day. A backpack is way more practical. Right. So our mission president wanted us to look professional and look good.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:40:27] And it did elevate. And I believe in that. The way you present yourself does elevate your message. So he made us wear nylons, and we hated that. Missouri is hot and humid. So in the mission field, then the sisters, when they go to where these historical sites are, the sisters work six hours a day in the visitor center. But then you're also assigned a proselyting area, and the elders did not give you a break for only working six hours a day in your proselyting area, meaning numbers wise, you had to produce the same amount of numbers in your proselyting area, even though you're only there half the time as the elders did. But I promise you, we did. We took that seriously.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:07] That sounds very much like you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:41:10] So we would work six hours a day in the visitor center. And then my companion and I at first were assigned to Kansas City, the inner city. And my mission president was very hesitant to send a young lady from Farmington, Utah, into inner city Kansas City. I had never been to a big city like that before. I had never been to kind of the ghetto of the city, and that's where missionaries worked. I've gone back there recently, and when I drive in those areas, I cannot believe that I felt comfortable and safe in those areas, but I did, and I loved it. So the first kind of people that we came across was this was when Sudan had refugees leaving its country and the Sudanese people were going everywhere.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:41:59] So we found all these Sudanese refugees in Kansas City. So in my mind, I said, oh, I wanted to go to Africa. Guess what came to me? So I got you. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:42:10] That's awesome.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:42:11] So they joined the church. I can't even tell you how many baptisms we had.

John Dehlin [01:42:17] A lot of baptisms.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:42:18] A lot. And I was communicating with other missionaries throughout the world in London, in Georgia, and in other places, Italy, also teaching the Sudanese refugees. They join the church.

John Dehlin [01:42:27] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:42:28] Wonderful, beautiful people.

John Dehlin [01:42:30] That's awesome.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:31] We won't do your mission at all justice today just because there's so much to cover.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:42:34] I know.

John Dehlin [01:42:35] Tell us. You mentioned your outline that you cover basket. You discovered basketball baptisms. Tell us what those were.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:42:41] So one of the first things in inner Kansas City, it wasn't a ward yet, it was just a branch. So they had to bring in. They didn't have enough priesthood leadership there in Kansas City for a ward. So they brought in leadership. The bishop, the family. The bishop, the relief society president, and the young women president were a husband, wife and daughter. And they were the leadership of the church. They were from independence. They were assigned to Kansas City to run this branch. So they we come to church. There's about 60 to 80 people that regularly go there. Now. In his bishopric, he did have two other black guys that were from Kansas City.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:43:17] One was from Liberia, one was, I think from Puerto Rico. So this was a very international type branch. It was so fun and cool. But he handed us this thick piece of paper. Here are the people, the lost sheep that you need to go find.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:43:33] And so as we would go along trying to find these people, it came out that most of these people were kids that. And this was way before my time, probably 10, well, 10 years or so before my time. In the 80s, sometime that elders would go. There were basketball courts all over in various parks of Kansas City. They would play kids basketball. And when those kids, I don't know if they lost or whatever, would take them and baptize them. And that's how they would get and get people to join the church. That's where a lot of names came from.

John Dehlin [01:44:07] And if any of you want to Google baseball baptisms, this was kind of a scam that when President Holland, the current Mormon apostle, and President Cook, who's a current Mormon apostle, they were in the British Isles in the early 60s when the mission presidents there were running these baseball baptism scams where thousands of young British men would get baptized into the church as a requirement to play in the baseball leagues. And then they had to end up Getting rid of that program and then excommunicating all these kids that have been baptized into the church or as adults, because there's no way to get them off the records of the church. But it's hard to have thousands of people on the rolls when none of those people really have any interest in the church. Is that right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:44:56] Yep. So my first experience with that is my companion and I were on the bus and a young man says to us, hey, I think I'm a member of your church. And to tells us the story about how he had been playing basketball with the elders. And of course we ask, well, can we come back to your home and teach you? And so we met a couple of people through that, but nothing really came of that. So we did find people that did want to come back to church. That ward grew and became not just a branch, but a ward during my time serving there. And now they have a church building there in Kansas City.

John Dehlin [01:45:30] See, you grew the branch into a word.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:45:32] Yeah, it grew. Not me.

John Dehlin [01:45:35] I mean, the Lord did it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:45:36] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:45:37] Through you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:45:38] You know, it's so interesting because I've always been resistant to that. And One of my APs was always really? But you're a tool. You're such a tool. And as I always think about that, I'm like, literally, we are. He's calling me a tool. That is not a compliment. Right. And the Lord just uses you. And that's how we go about. Right.

John Dehlin [01:45:59] It really busted your rear is what happened. And you had a lot of success.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:46:03] But we had six missionaries assigned to that branch. We had the sisters, we had elders, and we had Spanish speaking elders too. So there were a lot of missionary work going on there.

Fringe Mormon Groups Encountered on Mission

John Dehlin [01:46:14] Tell us about the. To what extent did you come in touch with like prepper Mormons, millennialist Mormons, weird fundamentalist or offshoot types that were all there because they felt like Jesus was coming any day. Was there polygamy weirdness going on?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:46:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:46:34] Talk about just Mormon weirdness.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:46:37] So my first area in Kansas City, nobody knew anything about the Mormons. They were not people that had roots in Missouri. So they were. Kansas City is very transient. Right. So a lot of people move in and out of there.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:46:52] So independence itself, though, there's like 30 religions that are break offs from the Mormon Church. They're based on every different aspect of the Mormon Church. So like we had one church, one that I spent quite a few time with people was this church based on the Word of Wisdom. So they had this huge document that they took just the section 89 out of the Doctrine and Covenants and expanded on that. And their whole religion was based on word of wisdom. But you had people driving around with bumper stickers proclaiming the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. And they weren't part of our orthodox Mormon church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:47:27] So that was so interesting to me. Our LDS church also has a missionary program, so in the summertime, they bring young people there to learn about their church. And we became great friends with those young people. I mean, they're about our same age, so that was super fun.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:47:46] But it was really when right before Christmas, I was transferred to Northern Missouri, so into the town of Cameron. And that's where I started encountering a lot of this other type. So there were a lot of families there that had really big families, you know, upwards of 12, 15, 18 kids would live in these huge homes. And I remember one family specifically that he was certain that January or December 1998, what was the. That was going to be the second coming. Yeah. And I remember that every people were kind of like, let's see if it's going to happen. And when it didn't, I never saw that guy again.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:48:25] He did not come out of his home for the rest of the time that I was there. And his family was. They were very embarrassed about that. So.

John Dehlin [01:48:35] And that's, you know, that was a really important part of my teenage years as a Mormon boy. Like, I really cared about the fact that Jesus was coming again. I was told he was probably gonna come in my lifetime. That literally I was saved as being most valiant, more valiant than my ancestors, apparently. I was being saved to usher in the second coming of Jesus as a Mormon teen. So then I was like, well, when's he coming? And so then I'm always was paying attention to the Book of Revelations and the signs of the times and always just when's it gonna be? Is it gonna be in next 10 years?

John Dehlin [01:49:14] Do I get married? Do I go on a mission? Like, will it be in Jackson County, Missouri? Is the church gonna build that temple yet? And I wasn't, you know, and I was just a normal mainstream Mormon. So I could see how people would kind of go kooky and they have forever.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:49:31] The whole theme of our mission was the New Jerusalem. We're building the New Jerusalem is that we're preparing the area for the New Jerusalem to be built. But in that area, people knew and understood that the Mormons lived polygamy, that we had this Book of Mormon. And it was a real issue as we were teaching people. So at that time, that was when those commercials were on tv, that people could call in and order a videotape and the missionaries delivered it. So we. There were certain places that we would show up and people would peek out their door. Did anyone see you coming? You know, if no one saw you, I'll let you in.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:50:03] And there was one town specifically, I may have written this in my outline, that most of the towns there in northern Missouri are still. The main road is paved, and the other roads are still dirt roads. They're pretty small towns. But there was one town we drove in, and it was this kind of, like, scene. Everything shut down, blinds drawn, doors closed. And you get out of the car, you're like, what is going on here? And you could see people peeking out their blinds, like, oh, my gosh, are we safe here? But we're missionaries, so of course we're safe. We're fine. Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:50:35] So knocking on the door, finding we didn't know where to go. The addresses are kind of difficult. So we figure it out. And people, they tell you come back when it's dark, so no one sees you coming. And then we'll talk to you. I mean, things like that, right? Yeah, there were a couple times people would open their door with rifles. Like if we were tracting in an area. If you're Mormon, I don't want to talk to you. Get out of here. I don't want anything to do with polygamists or Joseph Smith, anything like that. So northern Missouri, those people have been there for a very long time, and it is deep in them that they want nothing to do with the Mormons. So I go from Kansas City teaching and baptizing more than we even have capacity to, to northern Missouri. Nothing.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:22] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:51:22] Nobody wants anything to do with this. That was very difficult. Yeah. And the people there, the preppers, the second coming, I mean, the members were all into that, for the most part. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:37] Did that make Sunday soccer meetings or Sunday schools weird?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:51:41] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:41] How so?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:51:46] I think it was mostly visiting people. Sundays were kind of normal, but we never had very rare, had investigators to bring. And if we had investigators to bring, it was like, don't let them talk to so and so because they kind of talk about this weird stuff. And we don't want investigators to worry about that yet, you know, but people, I think, were pretty good when we brought investigators to know who to introduce them to.

John Dehlin [01:52:13] Well, we've covered, you know, Mormon church truth claims, a lot of Mormon stories, specifically, like with the LDS discussions, episode one of the Things we haven't really covered is all the really core Mormon fundamental doctrines that have just kind of disappeared.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:52:26] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:52:27] And this whole Zion, the New Jerusalem, like one of the Articles of Faith, like Joseph smith gave like 12 articles of faith and one of them literally, as we believe. We believe in the restoration of the ten tribes, that Zion, the New Jerusalem, will be built upon this, the American continent, that Christ will reign personally upon the earth and that the earth will be renewed to receive its Paradise School glory.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:49] Let's sign up and look at New for your.

John Dehlin [01:52:52] I may have missed part of it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:52:54] You did pretty good.

John Dehlin [01:52:55] But the point is, is that like, that was core Mormon doctrine. All the Mormons up till Nauvoo, before Nauvoo were working towards establishing the New Jerusalem, but then they get kicked out, Joseph Smith gets killed, everyone moves to Utah and it's like this awkward inconvenient doctrine where the Church. The Church doesn't want to renounce the doctrine. They don't take that Article of Faith out of the Articles of Faith. It's still lingering in our minds. But clearly the Church is not telling the members to move back there. They're not building the temple there and they're not acting in any way like that's ever going to happen.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:53:28] Right.

John Dehlin [01:53:29] And so it's clear that that's just a false prophecy that didn't come true and now we've moved on, but the Church doesn't want to admit it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:53:37] Yeah, well, we all hold in the back of our mind the. That this could still happen. Jesus could come and we could all walk back to Missouri because that's kind of the prophecy too, is that everything's gonna be destroyed and we're gonna walk back there and then build up the church there.

John Dehlin [01:53:51] And that's what fuels this Lori Valo, Chad dabell, Visions of Glory, Tom Harrison, prepper garbage nonsense. Cause the Church doesn't just get rid of it, they leave it lingering for fundamentalist orthodox Mormons to that and build their whole worldview around.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:54:08] And we believed in the literal gathering. So independence at that time, I mean, 60 to 70, 80% of the stake was made up of Polynesians, mostly Samoans, that had been gathering there since the 70s. The church would not be what it is there today without those people. And I mean, talk about. Here's another the. What do you call it? The consent, The United Order.

John Dehlin [01:54:34] Oh, united order.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:54:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:35] Oh, like, yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:54:36] Samoan people naturally live that way. What is mine is yours. And everything's just kind of this common kind of thing. They feed you Wonderfully. If you need anything and they have it, they give it to you. You know, they're just so sharing and caring. And I always saw them as. Well, they're gonna. The law of common consent. Is that what it is? Common?

Margi Dehlin [01:54:58] Is it the law of consecration?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:54:59] Consecration. Thank you. I was like, what is the word? Yes, yes, they United States, which is

John Dehlin [01:55:04] basically Joseph Smith saying we should be communists before communism. But then it all imploded. Is a disaster.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:55:12] Yeah. So the Polynesian people kind of live that way anyway. And so they're very good at that. And so you can kind of see, oh, they're here to teach us how to live that. And they're gathering. But they're wonderful, faithful people. Right. So very great.

Mission Leadership and Return Home

John Dehlin [01:55:26] Okay, last question I have for your mission and anything else you think is really crucial to your story or Margaret, you want to add. But like you mentioned learning about the movie the God Makers, which is a well known anti Mormon movie that I was exposed to in the 80s growing up in the church. Any exposure to what you would have been told was anti Mormon literature back then, that is worth mentioning.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:55:56] Yeah, it was going around some members when I was up in northern Missouri and even some elders watched it. And so it was kind of this.

John Dehlin [01:56:03] Whoa. As missionaries?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:56:04] Yes, it was kind of this.

John Dehlin [01:56:05] That would not be good for a missionary.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:56:06] No, it was kind of this gossip around the mission of what they were doing and seeing. And just then members were talking about it. So I remember, oh, my goodness, I have got to stay away from those kind of things and just stay away.

John Dehlin [01:56:21] But you didn't read or flirt with any of that dangerous stuff.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:56:24] No, I'm very obedient. I'm very. And especially as a missionary, I was super obedient. So again, I was a sister leader, especially because you have so many sisters that are in the visitor center. We had like 30 sisters that would be concentrated there in the visitor center. And our mission president, again thought a good idea would be to have a sister leader. But again, Elder Faust didn't think that was a great idea. So he gave us a different name. I don't know how he got around it, but he did. He did think it was a good idea.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:56:53] So I was always in leadership, meaning I was in charge of running meetings and making sure the sisters reported their numbers. And we still had elder district leaders. The first week that I was in the mission field, the APs called myself and my companion in and said, we're having issues with sisters following or being good. Like with the.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:57:17] They're giving the Elders a heart to. They don't want the elders to be over them. And so they said, sisters, can you help us with that? Well, the reason they called us in is my companion was the worst one.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:57:26] So they were looking that tact of if you want your class to behave, you call on the worst student to get them. So there was this idea from the very beginning of my mission of how can sisters work well with their younger missionary leaders? How can we follow and obey and be good sisters to these leaders, to these young men? So that was kind of a theme that I saw and I've seen all through the church is women that have the ability to work with the leaders in a way that we don't cause problems for them, but that we help.

John Dehlin [01:58:01] It's like a shadow leadership.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:58:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:05] And after, you know, women made a stink around 2015 with the Ordain women movement, eventually the church would create formal sister missionary leadership positions and missions. But, you know, you were too early. Yep, yep.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:58:20] It's true.

John Dehlin [01:58:21] Which is like the garments. It's like, why couldn't they just. Why couldn't God have just got it right from the beginning and let you be a leader like you were pretty much functioning in, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we've got two hours in. I want to spend a good hour on kind of you and your husband's faith transitions. But anything from your mission that's really crucial that you want to make sure we mention that would maybe tie into your faith journey later or did we cover?

Margi Dehlin [01:58:52] No.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:58:53] I feel like one of the things that I have been pretty good at doing is whenever I come across something that doesn't make sense to me, that is in conflict with what the doctrine is teaching and my lived experience, I just kind of put it back and I hold onto that and say, someday I'm going to figure this out. Someday this will make sense to me. I've heard people refer to it as putting items on their shelf or something like that. But anytime I encountered people that were living in conflict to what the doctrine or I felt like the brethren were teaching, I could hold space for that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:59:28] This is their experience. But I know what I'm supposed to do, and I just. I'll have an answer for that later. There's always this promise of you're going to figure it out in the next life or you're going to come across more teachings that things are going to make sense.

John Dehlin [01:59:43] Okay, so your shelf was building up.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:59:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:59:45] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:59:46] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:59:46] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [01:59:47] Yes.

Marriage, Motherhood, and Military Life

John Dehlin [01:59:48] So reviewing your interview, I really want to slow down and take the faith stuff slowly for the last hour. So, you know, what I would say is I could summarize it just as you come home, you get married and start having kids and start serving in all the leadership roles that women can serve in. Now that's my summary. What would you want to say are really important things to mention before we start with kind of your husband's question. Doubts.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:00:14] Yeah. So I. Not traditionally, we didn't get married until later. I was much older by the time I actually did get married. So I come home from my mission and I worked for a little while to save up money for college. I actually went to work for the church. I worked in the church travel department. That was a fun experience. I was all set to go back to the U and then decided I should go to BYU and that I should teach at the mtc. So I did that and I managed to get through byu, graduated before I got married.

John Dehlin [02:00:47] Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:00:48] So by the time I got married, I was 28.

John Dehlin [02:00:50] Wow. Yeah. And again, that's procedures to teach the the mtc.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:00:53] It is in Mormon culture. Yes. And I know that what got me in was having the visitor center experience. So I taught sisters and senior couples that would go to visitor centers and historical sites. I also was assigned often a district of just English speaking missionaries. I quickly became a supervisor. I would stay around in the summers. I would work full time at the mtc. So I would have full time classes that I was teaching and then I would supervise teachers and I would teach teachers. So I did a lot with that. And having the experience of teaching the elder missionaries, the senior couples gave me exposure to then the leadership at the MTC and the missionary department in church headquarters.

John Dehlin [02:01:37] That's awesome.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:01:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:39] And this is gonna sound offensive or weird, but 28 in Mormonism is old maid territory.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:01:44] You're right.

John Dehlin [02:01:45] Am I right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:01:46] I can tell you many people called me an old maid. Yes.

John Dehlin [02:01:49] At 28. But you did it. You found your eternal companion. Anything you want to say about?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:01:55] Yeah. I dated a lot at byu. This was finally. I felt like this is where I really came into my own. I came back from a mission and I was confident. Yes, I put on a lot of weight as a missionary, but I used all those things my sport. I got in shape.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:02:10] Mountain biking. I finally grew my hair long and was feeling good about myself. And I dated a lot and I had a lot of fun. I dated a lot of different kind of guys. Yes. So really took time figuring out what kind of companion I wanted for my eternal companion.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:02:28] So we met. We were in a student ward together at byu. We were friends probably for about a year and a half before he ever asked me out on a date. And we started dating. He had graduated in December, I graduated in the spring and we got married a year after. We had. Well, I graduated in 2003. We got married in 2004. So yeah, we had some dating experience. We broke up. He worked for a while out of the country, went to work in El Salvador. I broke up with him when he got back. We got back together. And so we dated for almost a year before we even got engaged. And then we got married in March of 2004.

John Dehlin [02:03:07] Okay, okay. And then I'm assuming you got on the Mormon train. You know, kids and motherhood.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:03:16] I did get on birth control and I remember my parents were horrified that I was on birth control because at the time they got married, the church taught you don't do birth control. Right. And I remember my mom saying, wow, you kids sure just don't care what the church says about this, this, do you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:03:37] But I wanted to work, so I took a job that I wanted some work experience. He was actually working for it's now Vivint, but at the time it was Apex Alarm and it was a demanding job. So we were both very busy. And I did not want to have a kid right away. So I got on birth control.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:03:57] And I felt at that time, I think a lot of young ladies were. But the fact that my parents didn't like that made me feel guilt and shame about that. But I did it anyway. So. But then a year or so into our marriage, by the time I had our first baby, I was 31. So eventually I went off it. And then we did start a family. So yeah, we started having kids.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:04:24] The first two are really close together. And then we have a big space and then we have three. So we have three children. Our oldest right now is 18, our daughter is 16 and we have a 12 year old son.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:04:36] So during that time, my husband was building his career. He worked and traveled a lot for work and that was a big deal. He also joined the military. He wanted to get a master's degree and that was how he figured he could pay for it. We were poor and we're going to have to either take out a loan, which we couldn't get one that big. And all three of my brothers were in the military and Scott wanted to have. I remember him telling me that even at 17, he thought about joining the military, but just never did. So this was just something that came on his radar of like, hey, I can get my master's degree paid for if I join the military.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:05:16] So we had a four year old and a two year old and I was. We lived in this place where I had stopped teaching and. And we took care of this developmentally delayed couple. So they were Both in their 50s, but they, you know, he had the mentality of a teenager and she did of a younger than that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:05:38] The way the family helped them is they lived in this home and they had a young couple, which was me, live and help cook and clean and everything for them. So that was our life right then. And he decided to join the military. He has to go away for six months. And I got called as young women's president. Oh, I do not know how I did it. Yeah, I do not know. It was hard, but we did. And it was then that I started seeing the church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:06:07] What they do to young families, I think is horrific. The demands that is put on families in their building time, in their career building when they're raising their children and relationship building. Yes, yeah, yes. The demands that the church adds on top of that add so much stress. Yeah, Yep.

John Dehlin [02:06:30] Yeah. And you're just checking all the boxes for kind of like the A in it to win it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:06:38] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:06:39] Sacrifice everything, give it all, leave it all on the. On the court.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:06:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:06:44] Mormon.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:06:45] Yes. And I was happy most of the time. I was happy to do it at church. I always looked and I'm a happy person. I know how to make the best of whatever situation I'm in. I know how to work hard, I know how to sacrifice. I know how to put my desires aside to do what needs to be done. I also am not someone that, like, you have those people that give so much extra. Like if they're teaching a Relief Society lesson, they put out the tablecloth, they bring the plant, they bring all of the things.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:16] They have food, they have a visual, they have maybe something like an activity.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:07:20] Yes, Yep, I hear you. I'm the kind that what I bring extra is my spirituality, my insight, my testimony, my knowledge of the scriptures. And so I don't need all that fluff. And so I know how to bring this balance of when I'm in a calling, I do what needs to be done and I do. I magnify. That's a really popular term in the church is magnifying. Magnifying your calling. Right. Is that you don't just do the basics, but you magnify what you're doing. And I knew how to do that without Going beyond that was way too stressful. So I felt like that was another reason that I kept getting called to these positions. Bishops would always tell me, you make living the gospel look fun. You make it look, you know, how to do it without being overly stressed, and you look good while doing it.

John Dehlin [02:08:09] What? Wait a minute.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:08:09] Bishop's always said that to me, what you look good while doing, which may

Margi Dehlin [02:08:15] be the most important.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:08:15] Right. And I just thought, well, I could, guys. I do it with a smile on my face, and I am not this psycho about it. Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:26] Well, don't you think. And this is true with mothering, too.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:08:29] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:30] That is a major message is to just. It reflects on you, on your character, on your virtue, on your goodness, if it is easy for you. So it's this motivator for women, and it almost creates us a false self.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:08:50] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:51] That if it is very difficult for you, you don't want to show that. It kind of shows that you're not in line with kind of divine things.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:09:00] Yeah. But I had learned from my parents that, you know, you can get up early in the morning and you get a lot of things done. I learned how to have quiet study time. I was always reading my scriptures and praying and using that quiet time to prepare. I would keep myself physically fit during all of this as well. I knew how to balance. That's a huge thing for me as well, is I give time to myself, physically, spiritually, mentally. But my family, my home, my calling, I knew how to do all of that. And I knew that some days there would be days that were wholly dedicated to my calling. There would be days that were wholly dedicated to my family. And I would take days that were dedicated to me. And I knew how to balance all that out. And I was good at that.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:43] Yeah. I mean, that's a skill.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:09:45] It is, for sure.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:47] And like, can we just have a moment for your health privilege?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:09:50] Very happy.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:52] You had, you know, honestly, great psychology, great, you know, physical health during that time. Great energy to give to that. Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:10:01] I was very aware about people around me that experience postpartum depression, you know, and I was very aware that I could fall into that. And so I would study what do I need to do to make sure that doesn't happen. And so I.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:14] Prevention.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:10:14] Yeah. I like to read a lot of books on whatever phase of life I'm in or going to be approaching so that I know what's coming up and how to be prepared.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:23] Yes, I relate to that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:10:24] Okay. So, you know, right now it's menopause. I'm learning a lot about that.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:28] I hear you. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:10:31] So in that time, I was very aware of women that experience not only postpartum depression, but how hard mothering was. And make no mistake, there were days. I remember my husband saying there were days that he would come home and I would just be crying and so exhausted of the responsibilities of two little children. This couple that I was also taking care of and my calling to manage all of that. And I would just like, welcome home from work. I'm going to bed.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:59] Right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:10:59] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:00] Yeah. Basic needs. That's real.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:11:02] Yeah. Or it would cause conflicts with us because I didn't have time to give to him as well.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:07] Yeah. You were spent. By the time he walked through the door. Yeah. You had nothing left. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:11:13] So, yeah. I don't want to minimize any of that. That was real. One of the ways that I was able to deal with that. And this is my always has been my advice to new moms. Find a friend that you want to split. Babysitting with. Like, playgroups were a huge thing when I became a mom. And I very quickly saw I do not want to go and just sit around with other moms watching our kids play and we can visit. I want to trade babysitting. So my kids go here while I get to go do what I want. Then she take them, I take them, whatever. So babysitting. Trademark.

John Dehlin [02:11:48] That's easier in Utah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:11:49] It is. I'm sure of it. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:53] Y' all were in Utah, right? Yeah. Okay. Orem, which is Utah county, near Provo. You mentioned your husband joining the military and being in the reserves.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:02] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:12:02] And how. And my dad was in the reserves growing up.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:05] Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:12:05] Coast Guard Reserves.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:12:07] But that. That adds an extra complexity.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:09] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:12:10] To Jug the Juggle.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:12] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:12] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:12:13] Do you want to talk about that?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:14] Yeah. So I told you the motivation, why we wanted to join the military. He wanted to get a master's degree paid for. Nobody else in our family was willing to accept that. That was the motivation. We had to say to them, hey. And we did. We went in prayer. We went to the temple. We thought about this. But it was something that we felt good about before we even did any of that. So we were going to proceed unless God intervened and told us no. And especially his mother was so mad at me that I would allow her son to join the military and possibly be deployed somewhere where he would be put in danger.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:12:48] I had to pretty much say to her, this is what God wants for our family. And then she finally stopped giving me a hard time. About it. But yeah, so he joined and he had his time here stationed at Springville and then at Camp Williams. And then after a few months, he had to do his basic training. So his. His employment gave him the time off. They pretty much just held his job, had other people fill in for him, but he was gone for six months.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:13:19] That's big. Yeah, he went and did. And I say that knowing that there are military families out there, that their spouses have been away for much longer.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:28] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:13:28] Like I said, all three of my brothers were in the military. And sometimes they could be gone for, I mean, three months. Three months. Three months. Or a year and a half or something. You know, I have a brother that has been multiple deployments as well.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:40] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:13:41] So I totally know six months is nothing.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:44] Well, it's something. And it's really something. Yeah. What they're managing. Yeah. We should have a moment for that. I just think it's. It is a thing to be recognized. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:13:55] So he. That. And that was that first experience where he had to go to basic training and then his AIT training. So you have basic training training, and then whatever job you're assigned to, you do training for that. So he wanted to take a job that would require the least amount of training and what was available to keep him here in Utah, where we wouldn't have to move anywhere, and that was being a cook. So that was only a couple weeks. So he joined the military and went in as a cook. And just to kind of give you an idea, most guys that go in as cooks are not educated.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:14:27] You know, they may be. It's not a difficult type of job. You're serving other people. And here he is as a professional. He could actually go in as an officer simply because he has a bachelor's degree. But that's what was available for him, and that was the least required, the least amount away from his family at that time. And so he took that, he did that, and he has totally enjoyed that and finds this great pleasure in actually making meals and serving the soldiers meals, in doing that. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. And it has been. And he has had such an amazing experience to that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:15:04] He's now a chief warrant officer over supplies. And so he doesn't get to prepare the meals anymore, but make sure that that is taken care of. So he has had opportunities for deployments, and he has been deployed on certain missions and training, like to Guatemala. He's been to Colorado. He's been to Idaho for different schools. He's had to go to South Carolina. So he'll have a couple months at a time every few years where he has to go away. But for the most part, he hasn't ever been deployed to a war situation, and we feel very lucky about that.

John Dehlin [02:15:40] And you mentioned that that service sometimes had implications for your relationship. Did you want to about talk?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:15:48] Sure, I'm happy to talk about that.

John Dehlin [02:15:49] Only if you want to.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:15:50] Yeah, it's fine. So he would travel for work. Often he worked for a marketing company or just different companies that he's worked for. He'd have to be out of town. And then once a month he goes away for the military. So he's gone a lot. So he misses quite a few things with our kids and with me. And when he comes home from being out of town for work or the military, it is not like he walks through the door and he says, hey, I'm here to take over for you. It's. I'm exhausted. He needs two days to recover from all of that.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:22] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:16:22] So not only am I.

John Dehlin [02:16:23] Well, you've been holding down the floor.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:16:24] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:16:25] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:16:25] Yes. So that at first, I really resented that, and that was really hard. I was not very welcoming to him. He would come home and I wasn't always happy to see him because I know he's not really there. He just needs to go to bed and he needs to recuperate. And that was difficult for me, but he was ready for some love and affection from me. And so we had this conflict of I wasn't ready to give it because he wasn't ready to take over and relieve me.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:16:55] But we just needed different things from each other. And so it took us a long time to actually figure out what we each needed and be able to communicate that. And often he didn't want to communicate that because that would mean he would have to change. Change. Or I didn't want to communicate it because that would mean I would have to change. And you have these roles that the church gives you when you're a member of the church, according to how you're supposed to live and support each other. And we weren't meeting that. And it was making a lot of conflict in our lives.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] Yeah. So that's all on top of all the Mormon stuff.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:17:31] It is.

John Dehlin [02:17:31] The work stuff and all the spouse stuff and all the parenting stuff. You're carrying a lot and all the leadership callings. That's just a lot.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:17:38] It is. On the other hand, aren't Mormons really proud of their military? Mormons are really supportive of their military men because you have Prophecies about the military men coming down from the mountains to save the country. So although the Utah military knows that that's what they're being prepared for, Right?

Margi Dehlin [02:17:59] That's right. And I think. And we've gone over this, I think, with some of our other interviews with people who've served in the military, but the Book of Mormon is very much like a military story. Yeah. Where those that are kind of fighting are viewed as very much, you know, it's on the side of God.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:18:18] Yes. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:19] To do so.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:18:20] And when. So sometimes in the community, when Scott has drill and he'll be in his uniform and we go out, people are so good to say thank you for your service and to recognize him. We'll go to a restaurant often and people will go up to pay for our meals, and our meals are already paid for.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:18:38] It makes me so feel so humble. People are so gracious. And it doesn't always come from the top down. Right. But people recognize the service and the sacrifice. He was deployed with the change of power, the last presidential election, not just this past one, but when theydo. You remember the riots that were in Washington, D.C.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:19:05] one of my brothers was deployed to help keep that under control. And Scott was deployed at the change of power. And we didn't know what it was going to be like. Like, it could have been like that. But while he was gone, my neighbors, every time he's gone, Mills show up on my porch. This is where I love the Mormon community, is the way that people step up and serve. And because I've always had these positions in leadership, I am very privileged to see the ways that people serve. Quietly. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:39] The behind the scenes, probably.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:19:41] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:41] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:19:42] Yeah. And people would know that he was out of town. A pizza would show up on our porch, a casserole. People would call, can I give your kids a ride anywhere? What do you need? And I. Even though it is a burden and we're talking about the stress that the church callings bring, it also put me in a position that people knew what was happening in my life. And even though I felt very capable that I didn't need these things, I always allowed, you know, what am I going to do? Emile shows up quietly. I don't know who brings it. Even though I do have an idea.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:20:16] It makes you humble and grateful. And then it makes me turn around and look other ways for people to serve. And that is the meaningful thing about serving in leadership and church callings is you have this window into people's lives that you wouldn't otherwise you know their struggles, and you know how to help people find peace and service and bring people together. You also see how quietly neighbors serve each other in meaningful ways. And it's so beautiful. And so while you are totally stressed out and strapped down with all these responsibilities that you probably don't need to have, you also see the beauty in it as well, in the way that people serve each other.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:21:01] And military service is just another way to serve people, and it's absolutely incredible. But people in the church and neighbors also step up and serve you in ways you never expect. And it's touching.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:13] Yeah.

Early Signs of Doubt Within the Ward

John Dehlin [02:21:15] Yeah. And that's really, really important because now that we get into kind of the unraveling of the faith part, that makes it more complicated. It does, because it's not like. And we'll hear about your husband going first. I'm not gonna guess that it starts with, like, a hatred for how horrible the church was in either of your life. Right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:21:36] No.

John Dehlin [02:21:36] Like you're giving everything to the church and having challenging but very rewarding lives. In a Mormon context.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:21:45] Is that fair to say?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:21:45] That is fair to say. And because I've always been able to work so closely with bishops, I never have had a bad experience with a bishop. I've always been able to see that they also generally operate with the best intent and with the welfare of their members forefront of their minds. But I think bishops are put in a tricky position of maintaining the position of the church and also what their members need.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:22:12] So as a Relief Society president. So I've been a Relief Society president or in the presidency, even during the transition of them, of the church, trying to take some of the responsibility and stress away from bishops and placing more on the Relief Society president and the Elders Quorum. President. President.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:22:30] So, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I can talk about that as well. I guess something else that came up in our marriage is that during my time serving and while he was in the military, we started to be aware of more people stepping away from the church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:22:48] And there was this time where there were these couples that we knew pretty well. And I. I, being in my positions, was very aware of what the women were going through, and according to the things that they were saying, their husbands were putting them in the position of, you choose our marriage or you choose the church. And I don't think that's uncommon for couples to go through.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:23:12] Maybe now more people are seeing that you can live in a mixed faith marriage, but at this time, it wasn't. And I remember telling Scott that I came home One Sunday, after having conversations with these women, and I said to him, if you ever make me choose between you and God, God will win every time.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:34] Whoa.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:23:36] And so, because I told him that it made him. As he went through his faith crisis, truth crisis, he knew where I stood and was very afraid to talk to me about it.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:50] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:23:51] And while I didn't mean that I would choose you over, he just was afraid that I would leave him.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:01] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:24:01] And even in our dating time, even though I was at byu, there were boys that I dated that were not committed to the church. And I specifically chose somebody that had gone on a mission, had a strong testimony, and was going to be a good leader in the church. I made that conscious choice. And so when my spouse started not wanting to have family prayer or family scripture study with us, that was very noticeable to me. So there was this time where we were both. We would go to the temple, we would pray, have family scripture study, family home evening. And then I remember him saying to me once, I don't want to go to the temple for dates anymore. It's not fun. And I was like, oh, okay.

John Dehlin [02:24:53] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:24:54] He wanted our dates to be going out to dinner and go to a movie. So I started going to the temple by myself and that it was just this data point, this thing that we didn't do for dates anymore.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:25:08] And I became a more regular temple goer because I didn't have to worry about someone else's schedule. I could go on my own schedule. I don't have to worry about mine and having childcare, making sure that somebody was watching my kids, and I could go to the temple. So I could go to the temple at least once a month and made sure to do that because I was a good member of the church. And that was kind of the rate that they say you should go to the temple once a month.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:25:33] Yeah, it's kind of good if you went more than once a month, you're kind of extra. Right. But once a month, and that was good. So I made sure to do that. I also started to notice that he would pull out his phone during sacrament meetings, and he would be on his phone instead of listening to the speakers and paying attention. And I was really bugged by that because I wanted him to be an example for our children of paying attention. And to me, that was. First of all, that was so rude to do, right? To pull out your phone while someone is speaking or teaching a lesson. And I just. I couldn't stand that. Having been a former school teacher, you just don't do that. Right. You pay attention.

John Dehlin [02:26:17] You know, I've met him and talked to him. I'm trying to remember, was he texting other buddies during church who were also

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:26:23] questioning, but I didn't know it at the time?

John Dehlin [02:26:25] No, no. I'm just saying that's a common thing where, like, guys and women probably do it too, where they're like, they're struggling in their faith, they're hating the church experience, They've got other buddies who probably infected them in some way in terms of doubting and questioning, and then they're all complaining or making fun of.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:26:44] You wouldn't believe what this person just said or what I just heard.

Margi Dehlin [02:26:47] Or it's also sometimes just distraction. Like what? Their hearing is so triggering that they're trying to actually cope through a distraction of their phone. But within Mormonism, I mean, I can imagine. Right. It's off script.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:27:05] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:05] It shows, like, oh, you're not serious. You're not, like, on the plan.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:27:10] Yeah. And at first. And I was super embarrassed by it to have other people could see that that's what he was doing. And especially for our kids, he's like, we're not being examples for our children.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:21] So during this time when you're starting to kind of see some of these things, were you just kind of noting it? Yes, Inside. But you didn't really ask directly.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:27:32] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:32] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:27:32] And then it wasn't until we started doing the Come follow me came out, and he had a harder time participating in that. So we would sit down and we would read through it, and then he would kind of.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:27:47] And very flippantly, when it was his turn to kind of run the discussion, he would do it. When I would do it, I would put this effort into it, and I would help my. If my children were leading it, I would help them with it. And it would become this good experience. And so it became enough that finally I kept approaching, what is going on with you? What is it? And he would never open up. And so finally I would just say, okay, then if you can't talk about it, just go along with it. Just participate. Just help me do this. Right. So in my mind, I'm like, I'm a returned missionary. I know how to do this. I'm a Relief Society president, presidency member. I can do this.

Margi Dehlin [02:28:25] You're like, I'll hold it for both of us.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:28:27] I got this.

Margi Dehlin [02:28:28] I actually can cover you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:28:29] Yes. So whatever you're going through, just be here. Show up. That's all I need.

John Dehlin [02:28:35] And were you worried about his. What was going on Inside, whether he was mentally healthy, whether he was gonna sin or leave the family, and most importantly, whether your eternal salvation as an eternal couple was going to be in jeopardy.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:28:56] Yes, I went through all of that in my mind. He's not in love with me anymore. He's not happy in our marriage. He is not happy. There's something going on with him, with the church, which I couldn't imagine what that could be. Then also, I was like, is there things at work that are causing you stress? Is what's going on the military just what is going on? Why this is inconsistent behavior. This is not what I've seen from you in the past. There's just things going on that you're not opening up about. And he's someone who likes to talk. And so because he would not talk about this, it would. It was very noticeable.

Margi Dehlin [02:29:38] Yeah. And probably, like, very destabilizing and scary for you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:29:43] Yes. We fought a lot about it. It was a source that. And so. And because of this, we weren't connecting. Our intimacy in all ways was suffering. And it was very noticeable. And it was noticeable to our children. It was noticeable, I think, to people around us as well. We just. Just weren't close.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:07] Right. There was like a disconnect.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:30:09] Yep, there's a disconnect. There was tension. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:12] And for him, probably not to speak like it's his story or. But sometimes what can happen is this feeling where you feel like there's so much at stake that you can't be authentic.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:30:24] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:25] So he's in this place of, like, ugh, things are changing. And to go along, actually, like you said, you're offering to cover, but to go along feels like self betrayal and feels.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:30:39] It also had this effect on me that I hadn't felt since I was young. And that was. I couldn't trust my feelings as a person. Like, it was very damning to me. My. Like, I was doubting myself in a lot of ways. Like, here I thought I could be this bright, smart person, and he wasn't giving me that feedback. Here was the person that was loving me, that's supposed to love me the most, and is my eternal companion. And yet all of the time, my sense of self was going further and further down in. Well, I can't trust my own thoughts about this. I can't trust my instincts and my intuition. I clearly have no idea what's happening. It just was breaking us in all the ways.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:31:39] And your marriage was built on a certain contract, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:31:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:31:43] And from the believer's perspective, the non Believing spouse is breaking the contract.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:31:50] And so the church teaches you, when this is happening, what do you need to do? You need to double down. You need to pray more, you need to read your scriptures more, you need to go to the temple more. You need to do more service in the church. And so what did I. I started doing all those things, and that was worse. That was the wrong thing to do.

John Dehlin [02:32:07] Why?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:32:07] Yeah, well, because as he was pulling away from the church and I'm doubling down on it, then that was. Then this conflict was even greater, and it was just bubbling under the surface, like, intensified. Yeah, yeah. And I would, okay, if I need to bring my family, my husband, I need to serve more in the church. Maybe if I do more service for other people, you know, instead of being at the home more, I would look for more ways I could get involved with the church or more ways I could bring the scriptures in. I mean, I started. Not only were we having family, parents, scripture city, but I would pull out the scriptures as the kids were running out the door, and I'd be like, here's your scripture for the day.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:32:44] You need to think about this. And because that's what the church teaches you is supposed to work in is the way you find happiness and peace and contentment together. And it wasn't working. It was having the opposite effect.

John Dehlin [02:32:55] Was it driving a wedge between you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:32:57] Absolutely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:59] And then I've counseled with a lot of people in his situation, and it's unhealthy to be hiding things from your spouse, to not feel like you can go to your spouse to tell them everything. To be. Not just to be terrified that your spouse won't love you or want to be with you, but also to also feel like your spouse is disappointed in you, especially over years. That could be really toxic stuff for mental health, for the marriage. Even suicidality can kind of emerge.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:33:34] Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [02:33:36] In that scenario. And infidelity, honestly.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:33:39] Absolutely. And I was worried about all of those things. So I did become aware at that time that his two best friends were also questioning the church and their spouses. And I mean, they're people that we look towards so much that we had known even before we got married.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:33:59] And I know that he was spending time with them and talking to them. Then I became aware of that's who he was texting with during church. We actually went on trips with them. And I drove down there with one of the wives, and we talked about it the whole way down, and she was still on the fence about whether she was in or out of the church, but her husband was out and on this trip I knew that they were having lots of conversations with Scott about it. And even though every time I would come up they would stop talking and I'm like, duh. I obviously know what you guys are talking about and you're not talking about it when with me it's very obvious.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:34:33] And that was hurtful because I just felt like I am not a judgmental person. And I have shown that I can be very open and open minded and love people for who they are and not their beliefs. And yet nobody treated me that way.

John Dehlin [02:34:50] And do you have a sense for why they were acting that way because of Scott?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:34:53] It was out of respect for Scott. He was convinced that I would leave him and take our children and leave.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:00] That time that you came and shared, maybe that thing about if know that I will. It feels like that just like really settled his brain as like primary fear.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:13] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:13] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:14] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:35:15] There are also questions that questioners have like will it hurt her?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:35:20] Will she be. Will it be good for her to hear this stuff? Or will she hate us? Will she want to cause. Another very natural scenario for someone in your place is to just fire all those friends and say stay away from all those people. We're finding new friends. Cut them out of the life because, you know, and we've had people cut us out of their lives just because we weren't on plan and we didn't even want to talk to them about anything. We weren't drinking, we weren't doing things that would be scary. We just didn't believe anymore. And that's enough for some Mormon couples to just cut you off.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:55] It is. And I.

John Dehlin [02:35:56] Even if you're friends for decades.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:35:58] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:35:59] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:35:59] Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:36:01] No, I understand that and I know that. And so I totally get that somebody who is questioning, approaching, especially someone like me who seems to be this super active, all in believing member, wouldn't want to talk about it. When in reality I have always been nuanced. I never even knew that word though, until we started talking about it or we started listening to that word doesn't

John Dehlin [02:36:27] appear in Mormon curriculum prior to 2020.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:36:30] You know what I mean? Yes.

John Dehlin [02:36:32] Yeah. That's just a word. Not even in the Mormon soup.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:36:37] You apply it to your personality nuances. Right. But you don't ever apply it to your belief because there isn't. In orthodox Mormonism, there isn't nuance.

John Dehlin [02:36:45] There is not room for in or out. In or out.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:49] This sounds like a really tough Time.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:36:52] Yes. So I don't know exactly why he decided to finally, he says, come out to me, but I always say, let me in.

John Dehlin [02:37:02] Oh, that's good.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:04] I like that he finally let me in. So it was honorable anniversary, which we were married March 20th in 2004. So this month is coming up to be our 21st wedding anniversary. So on our. We went away for a weekend for our wedding anniversary, and he had decided that that was when we were going to talk and he was finally going to tell me.

Husband's Faith Crisis and Tithing Struggles

John Dehlin [02:37:26] Wait, this is last year?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:27] Two years ago.

John Dehlin [02:37:28] This is two years ago?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:37:30] That's so recent.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:31] It is.

John Dehlin [02:37:32] Yo.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:37:33] And it's on a anniversary.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:37:36] You know, the people are always like, when's the right time? The truth is there's never a right time.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:37:40] There never is.

John Dehlin [02:37:41] But I've heard people say, I wish I hadn't have chosen like a honeymoon anniversary vacation in Cancun as the place to tell my spouse. I don't believe anymore.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:50] But I can see some of the elements that you want to have when you're going to tell someone. Something would be there when you're going away, when you're alone, when he can kind of.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:38:03] We have the time apart from our home.

Margi Dehlin [02:38:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:05] Kids aren't around. They won't see the confidence.

Margi Dehlin [02:38:08] You'll have a space to have your own feelings.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:38:11] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:38:13] How'd that go?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:38:14] This is how it went. He didn't bring it up the night before. We had Saturday night. We had a lovely night together, full of all kinds of intimacy. It was wonderful. The next morning on Sunday, he said, we need a talk. So we sat down and he just poured his heart out.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:38:34] It probably took him three hours. He cried and he just told me everything. And while I listened to him, I felt nothing but compassion and love. I was so felt all of his pain and I felt so bad that I had created this environment where he felt like he couldn't come to me, me and talk to me about these experiences that he was having.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:39:00] And it was so emotional and so filled with. He was so sorry and felt so bad that I know that other couples that have experienced this, that has been a horrible experience. And there's been lots of fighting and yelling and hurt.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:39:21] I didn't feel any of that and I didn't want any of that. I just felt so much peace that I finally understood him and he was finally opening up. That when it was done, he said, what do we do from here? Are you ready for a divorce? I was like, shocked that he would think that I said, no.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:39:42] I feel so bad that you have had to go through this. And we determined that we would not have any more secrets from each other, that we were going to talk about everything and build on this.

Margi Dehlin [02:39:55] I love that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:39:56] Thank you. And we determined that anything that we were thinking, feeling we would open up to each other about, I said, I do not want to leave you. I love our family. I love you. And I said, let's see what our life is going to be like from here on out. We're going to take it day by day. And I said, at this moment, I still choose you. And every day when I wake up, I will decide whether I choose you or not. And every day I choose to be with him and our family. Our marriage has gotten enormously better, exponentially better. We have talked about everything and anything and our intimacy in all the ways is so much better.

Margi Dehlin [02:40:43] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:40:44] Our marriage is so strong

John Dehlin [02:40:47] just because. Details help.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:40:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:40:51] Do you remember like three to five of the main things he told you during that three hour conversation? What they were?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:40:56] Yes. His first issue was around tithing. He had gotten behind on paying tithing and he was going to make it up. But by the time that tithing settlement, tithing declaration came around, he was not a full tithe payer. And so they. I don't love the way the church has always done this. Right. There are so many things that the church can do better on. And this is one of those. You go in as a whole family for tithing declaration and a father and a mother have to declare whether they're full tithe payers in front of their children and each other.

John Dehlin [02:41:31] It's kind of coercive.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:41:32] It is, it is horrible. And it used to be that you would have a printout of all the tithing you paid and that the bishop did too. And now it isn't. Now the bishop has on his screen, yes or no. And he has no idea how much tithing you've paid.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:41:48] But at that time he still could see. So he could question you on that. Well, you live in this type of home or you drive these cars, clearly you're making more money than the amount of tithing you're paying. Right. That's horrible.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:42:01] So Scott, we, me and my children went into this tithing settlement and we got to declare we are full tithe payers. Our children don't pay any tithing. Scott stayed behind and said to the bishop, I'm not, I'm behind. And the bishop said, you need to surrender your temple recommend. None of, well, you've been a full Tithe payer for your whole life up to this point. Maybe we could come up with a plan for you, but just. You can't declare it in this moment. Surrender your temple recommend.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:28] Interesting.

John Dehlin [02:42:28] Which is humiliating.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:42:30] Absolutely. That was devastating for him. He didn't have it on it and so he had to bring it to church. And in the lobby, this is what he told me he did after everybody left the sacrament meeting and we were all in our classes, he was sitting in the lobby and the bishop approached him and he handed it over in the lobby. The feelings of having to do that for him were completely devastating.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:53] It's kind of like I failed.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:42:55] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:56] I'm a failure.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:42:57] Let me just hand over my eternal salvation, my family, everything to you in this one moment because I didn't pay all the tithing this year.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:06] Yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [02:43:07] Huh?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:08] Yuck. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:09] Absolutely gross. And our bishop was our neighbor.

John Dehlin [02:43:12] Especially when the church is worth almost $300 billion now. You know, it's like they can give you a break for six months.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:21] Yeah. And of course, the SEC that had not all come out yet, but we had a sense that the church was. Was super wealthy just two years ago, you know, that was before all the SEC stuff.

John Dehlin [02:43:31] Yeah, it was around that time. I mean, the Ensign Peak stuff had

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:34] come out at the time that he had surrendered his tithing recommend. So it would have been, I think, two years previous to him telling me. So this had been going on for two or three years before that. So. Yes.

John Dehlin [02:43:45] Okay. And by the way, if you're not really believing anymore, 10% of your income is kind of unreasonable.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:52] Right?

John Dehlin [02:43:52] You know?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:43:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:43:53] So if he was like, yeah, I'm learning all this stuff, that's problematic. I'm not sure I even believe in the church anymore. Should he have to pay 10% of his hard earned income to an organization he thinks might not be on the up and up?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:44:08] But this was the experience that was the most devastating for him. And so he went into. And of course I can't really tell a story, but he went into a deep dive of why we pay what we pay and what is all of the law and everything around tithing. He went so far as to go to the beach, BYU archives, and study it there and find original pamphlets and information on tithing. And he came to the conclusion that the church does tithing wrong. That when you are giving 10%, it really should be on your increase, which

John Dehlin [02:44:37] is what the Doctrine and Covenants actually says.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:44:39] Yes. Yeah. But that's not what the church is teaching now. It's 10% on what your paycheck is. Right. Or if you're even more righteous on the ground. Gross, right?

John Dehlin [02:44:50] A lot of people do. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:44:51] Yeah. So because of that, he started then thinking about, well, what else is wrong? What else is going wrong as well. And so then he started. We. I just saw as he was talking all these things where he started looking. He finally started looking at the temple, the scriptures. He just started deconstructing all of these things, and it just was breaking apart his testimony.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:45:17] So he did not want to be involved in our family prayer and scripture study. The home church, the Come follow me. I mean, Covid was an absolute blessing because he didn't have to go to church, but we were doing home church, and I was very into that. Right. Oh, sign for church. Turn on our YouTube church now. You know, watch the broadcast and everything.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:45:35] We could see that our children weren't totally into it, but they were going along because I was making them. And we have obedient children, and I have wonderful children. And because I was asking them to do this thing, they were doing it, but it was starting to break apart.

John Dehlin [02:45:50] So I'm guessing he would have then stumbled into the Joseph Smith stuff, the polygamy stuff.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:45:56] He came into Book of Mormon stuff,

John Dehlin [02:45:58] Book of Abraham stuff, all the stuff we cover on LDS discussions.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:02] Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't know exactly what his friends were feeding him and everything, but he found out a lot of information from them as well. But I do think even on his own, the Book of Mormon stuff kind of started to fall apart. The idea of the priesthood, patriarchal blessings, for sure. There were just kind of all these things that just started crumbling for him.

Serving as Relief Society President While Questioning

John Dehlin [02:46:28] And then once y' all had this very important meeting on your anniversary, did he want to share with you the things he was learning?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:35] So what he said to me.

John Dehlin [02:46:37] Because you were still a believer, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:38] Yeah, he very much, much said so. We have that meeting that week is I had been serving in a relief society as a first counselor for like five or five, six years. That week, the bishop came and asked me to be the president.

John Dehlin [02:46:51] Did he know about your husband?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:53] No.

John Dehlin [02:46:54] Okay, so.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:55] So the week prior.

Margi Dehlin [02:46:57] But he did know.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:46:58] So it. I think it was this order week prior, Bishop comes to me, says, I'm releasing you as first counselor, calling you as president. We go away for the weekend, have this exchange. I'm getting called as president. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, well, God knows, of course, that we just had this. Here's my way. Am I going to bring Scott back into the church. Am I going to make it all right, or what's this experience going to be like for me? What is this all about? Is this about me keeping my children in, leading them the right way? It was just kind of this, let's see what happens here. But of course I'm going to accept this calling.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:29] But the bishop did know. Clearly he knew Scott didn't tithing.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:47:34] So it was a different bishop by this time. So this bishop, he only knew that Scott didn't have a temple recommend.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:39] Okay. But he did know that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:47:41] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:47:42] And just for those who have never been Mormon and haven't watched our previous episodes, the Relief Society president in a Mormon ward or congregation is the closest thing we have to a bishop or a priest for women.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:47:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:47:59] It's sort of the highest level position a woman can hold in a Mormon congregation.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:48:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:48:04] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:48:05] Yes. So we had moved into this ward and I immediately was called into a Relief Society presidency. So I served as counselor to two other presidents and then under another bishop. And now this bishop, he didn't know. He was not the one that took Scott's temple recommend away, but just bishops know who has a temple recommend and who doesn't. And Scott was serving. His calling was either he was a Sunday school teacher of the youth or he was in employment. I think he was still a Sunday school teacher.

Margi Dehlin [02:48:37] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:48:37] So he was teaching the 16 and 17 year olds in Sunday school. Loved that. He was really good at that. But he didn't. Now he's having to teach them things he's not believing in anymore as well. So. But to get that calling, it's not like the bishop Ch. Most callings, the bishop calls the person into the office. The bishop came to our home and sat down on our couch with me and Scott asked to meet with both of us and asks. Every time I receive a calling in leadership, they get the man, my husband's permission first and want to know how he feels about it before they extend the calling to me. That always bugs me, but they do that. But it's okay to have spouses, you know, because at the time commitment, if

Margi Dehlin [02:49:22] it works both ways.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:49:23] Yeah, exactly.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:24] Maybe. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:49:25] But they never any calling he got. They never asked my permission.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:29] Yeah. And that's why it bugs you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:49:31] Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:35] So it is interesting. I mean, I'm not reading into it, and I just think it's interesting that, you know, the bishop is aware that your husband doesn't have a temple recommend and that this is the time back to kind of how oftentimes callings can come in times of actual real stress for couples or families. It definitely signifies that he's a little bit off script in some way, and that's the time that they choose to come in home and do something so confronting as life. Would you object to us giving your wife this very important calling, even though you're clearly. I mean, there's a little bit of a feeling of that, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:50:23] Absolutely. But we were still. Our whole family was there every week in the pews, attending, participating, still in.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:30] The family was in. But I think this is where sometimes for people that are in mixed faith situations, the church becomes a barrier that separates the couple or makes it very complicated to exist at a time that's already kind of confusing and tenuous.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:50:47] Yes. But anyway, so some of the things that Scott said to me, though, were some of the reasons that this was working out. Okay. First of all, he said, I am not asking you to choose between me and God, because that statement that I made to him was in his head, and he knew that potentially that could push me away.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:51:07] He was very clear to say, I love this part of you. I love how dedicated and committed you are. I love how faithful you are. I love how spiritual you are, and I am not asking you to change that. I just want to know if you can accept me where I'm at.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:51:23] And, yes, I can do that. Of course I can. That doesn't mean I didn't cry in the shower over it or yell into my pillow about that, because that's what that feels. Yes. Yes. And I intentionally chose him because of those attributes as well. And now he's taking that away. And now he's making me be in a different type of marriage than what I agreed to.

Margi Dehlin [02:51:47] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:51:48] But I also saw, on the other hand, he's becoming a better person because of this. This deconstruction of the church is making him more compassionate to my plight, to plight of women in patriarchy, women in general. It's making him more compassionate to LGBTQ people. All of these things that he was now looking at differently than he hadn't before. And so as we're going forward, I'm seeing him become a better person. And how is that possible as you're deconstructing the church that all is supposed to be the source of all eternal happiness, and he's becoming better.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:52:22] That was where a lot of I started to see, okay, I need to. It's okay for me to start looking at this. And at that time, he said to me, at some point, I want you to start to understand what it is I'm going through and why I believe what I believe. But I'm not asking you right now. I'm not asking you to look at anything.

John Dehlin [02:52:39] So he smart. That's smart?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:52:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:52:41] It's a little bit. I don't know if it's intentional, but it's kind of reverse psychology.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:52:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:52:44] It's like, I'm not going to push this on you, but, you know, if you're ever ready, I'll talk about it, but I'm not going to, you know, and that's smart versus, like, you need to hear this. You need to hear this because I'm struggling. And you need to know your head's in the sand.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:52:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:52:58] You're blind. You know that. It's so smart.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:53:01] He didn't do that at all. Yeah. So he. This was in March, and he was. I asked him to keep attending church for our children, for our family, and he agreed to. So he did. But by August, one day in August, there was this day that he sent me a text during church and just said, I'm sitting out in the truck. So I go out to the truck, and he's out there, and I can see that he is emotionally distraught. I don't know what has happened, but he is not in a good place. So we all get in the truck. He's been crying. He's angry.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:53:30] I say, let's take the kids home, and then let's just talk. And he unleashed. I mean, pounding, yelling loud. Just all of this about what was happening in elders quorum. And after he threw the. This fit and got it all out, I said, clearly, I can't ask you to keep attending church. And I said, it's up to you. I don't need you here. The kids don't need you here.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:53:55] But I said, if you're going to stop attending, we need to tell our kids why. So he agreed. And he actually had some military training, so he was going away, had some work. So it was. This was August, and it wasn't going to be October until he was actually back and would have to miss church

Margi Dehlin [02:54:12] for it to come up again.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:54:13] Yeah, exactly. So we had some time to think about it. So it was at this point that he finally said, okay, I want you to think about what we tell the kids. And I said, we. This is you. This is your thing. This is not me. And I said, I will support you, but this is you. And he's like, okay, fair enough. But he said, okay, just so you can be prepared. He said, there is this podcast called Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. And they have an episode on how to talk to your children about this. I said, fair enough, I will listen to that.

John Dehlin [02:54:44] And for those who don't know, this is something Margi and I. Margi and I with Natasha. Yes. Margi and I were meeting with so many people and so many people reaching out, saying, I have help, I'm in a faith crisis, I'm imploding, my marriage is imploding. How do we parent? And we, you know, we tried to be coaches for a while after I got my PhD in psychology and Margi got a coaching certification, but we just couldn't help all the people that needed help. And we didn't feel comfortable monetizing that because we just felt like that would, I don't know, we just didn't feel good about monetizing it.

John Dehlin [02:55:21] So we got Natasha, who we had done. Natasha Helfer, who we had done a ton of retreats and workshops with over many years, and literally just said, as a gift to the world, world, to help people in need, let's create 70 hours worth of free content to share all our best tips and tricks for anyone who's going through a faith crisis. How to come out to your believing family and friends. How to not blow up your life after a faith crisis. How to tell your spouse or your kids, how to deal with bishops and church leaders, healthy sexuality, grief, stages of grief, all of it.

John Dehlin [02:55:59] We even recorded an entire two and a half day retreat and just put all that up for free. You can go to mormonfaithcrisis.com and it's all there for free right now. And honestly, I'm surprised more people don't talk to me about it. But I'm really happy when we learned that it at least helped somebody.

Margi Dehlin [02:56:20] Yeah, it landed with you.

John Dehlin [02:56:21] Yeah. So you checked it out?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:56:24] Yes. So he went away for his military training and said, I don't remember the episode, episode 7 or 13 or something like that. And I was prepared to listen to that.

John Dehlin [02:56:34] And which one was it?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:56:36] Just about how to talk to your children when one or both of you is not believing anymore.

John Dehlin [02:56:40] And how was that?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:56:41] So I listened to it. And in your mind, you're so prepared that anything that is not going to be for Mormonism is not going to be full of the spirit is going to be antagonistic or something along those lines. When I first heard your voice, John, it was like, oh my gosh, this is what I'm supposed to listen to. Right. I immediately felt comfort. I listened to that episode. And then I went back to the beginning. And I started at the beginning with one. By the time he came back from his military training, I was somewhere in the twenties.

John Dehlin [02:57:20] And that's like 40 or 60 hours worth of content because there were two or three hour episodes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:57:25] And it was then that I realized, oh, my gosh, all of these things that have not made sense to me from the time that I was a little girl until now, there's a reason for that. I am not. I am smart. I do understand this. I am not broken. I don't have to push my thoughts, my critical thinking to the back of my head anymore. I can allow my thoughts to have place in my head. And all of a sudden, I realized Mormonism has given me so many good things, but there's also so much wrong with it. And I finally wanted to know. I was prepared to listen and hear all those things.

John Dehlin [02:58:08] That's beautiful. But can I ask you a couple questions? So that's not. I mean, we made it. We actually didn't make it. We didn't create it for the believing spouse.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:58:18] I know.

John Dehlin [02:58:19] We created it for the non believing spouse to navigate the waters. So, number one, it wasn't intended for you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:58:26] I know.

John Dehlin [02:58:28] So that's interesting.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:58:29] That's clear.

John Dehlin [02:58:31] But the second thing is, it's not LDS discussions. We're not talking about polygamy. We're not talking about truth claims. We're not talking about Book of Mormon historicity or Book of Abraham. It's literally like mental health coaching psychology. So why would you conclude from that anything about the church's truthfulness or the harm the church may have caused when it was literally like coaching and mental health tips for people in faith crisis. Not to instigate a faith crisis or even to educate about problems with the church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:59:04] The way that you all spoke with each other and with Natasha about your mental health was so beautiful and inspiring that it allowed me to sit with my discomfort in what I had always been experiencing and say, this is okay. It was like I finally had the permission to look at the things that didn't make sense and that were causing disconnect in my own mind. And. And from your voices. I knew nothing about you but what you were discussing together. And you sounded like you had. And this was all listening. There were no video.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [02:59:43] You sounded like you had this relationship that I was aspiring to with my own spouse. And so I kept listening and it was beautiful. And then I realized, oh, he has this other podcast with these other stories as well. So that when Scott got home Then I told him where I was in this, and he's like, oh, my gosh, I need to catch up. Then you've listened to all these things. And we would listen to.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:00:08] I don't know how many we did of gift of the Mormon faith crisis, but we just started with each other talking about all the ways that Mormonism and our families, all the beautiful things that they had given us and that it was. We wanted to acknowledge that. And then he started saying, well, do you want to look at some of the ways? Look into some of the.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:00:26] The truth claims? Are you ready to do that? And we started with polygamy only because he was having, like, I, of course, I had on the wall of our home the proclamation to the family. And there was so much going on about polygamy and everything. We just decided to start there. So we started that with LDS discussions. And then I was like, okay, let's go back to the beginning. And we did.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:00:48] We did. So as a Relief Society president, I started then in Utah County. Right, In Utah County. Yep. I started deconstructing these beliefs and taking a look at them. And it took us so long to get through the LDS discussions because we literally. We'd listen and pause, and we would have a half hour discussion with each other about that. We would listen more and discuss. We would do it. Listen while we're doing the dishes together. We would listen.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:16] Talk about connection.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:01:17] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:18] Your connection is yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:01:19] Yeah. We would listen in the car. We would look for opportunities to go places together so we could listen to it in the car, especially away from the kids, where we could discuss it in private and openly and where we could yell and cry and rage and then be so happy and love and. Because you're breaking down everything that is so much a part of your identity and that you have. Have built your life with this in mind, and then you're breaking it down.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:49] That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:01:49] And we did all of that, and it took me only. Let's see. So he got back in October. By April, we were on a spring break trip, and we had been listening to some podcasts, not just Mormon stories, but others. And he finally turned the radio off, and he's like, do you need to listen to this anymore? I mean, how much? What subject do you still need to deconstruct?

Jennifer's Own Faith Crisis and Resignation

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:02:11] And I sat there for a minute, and I said, nothing. I don't believe it anymore. I can see all these problems. I don't have a testimony in this. And I said, so we turned on something else and listened to that. And that was April and I. Of what year of last year?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:02:32] No, so 2023. Okay, okay. So then I still had, I was like, I'm going to serve out my time as a relief sighting president, which was usually it's three years. That was kind of the. Nobody ever set time limits. But somewhere along the way, in all these callings of bishop, stake president, whatever, there became a time limit. Right. So it became the trend that relief sighted presidents were serving for about three years. So from the time that I was, even though I had spent seven years in a president's seize, as a president, I was committed to serve that three years out. So by April and I told, of

Margi Dehlin [03:03:09] course,

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:03:11] when you're a Relief Society president, you have a lot of meetings with the bishop. You have ward council and your purpose in those meetings is to talk about the families that aren't coming. You have a whiteboard that has people on there and it says next ordinance. And sometimes that next ordinance is attend sacrament meeting and take the sacrament. For some people, it's attend the temple, it's get this priesthood. Of course my family is supposed to be on there, but out of respect for me, it didn't list my family. There were times where they kept trying to bring up Scott and what the elders quorum needed to do.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:03:42] And I finally told the ward council, he is not coming. You don't need to worry about him. He's fine and we're fine. And so I should go back to when we first started listening to Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. We had to tell our children. So our son at that time was. Was he 15?

John Dehlin [03:04:04] So that's like three years before his mission, right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:04:07] Yeah, yeah. He's 18 now. So we told him that Scott was not going to be attending church and that he didn't believe and that Scott wasn't going to go into it all with him at that point, but that he could tell him. And our son's reaction was, phew. I was wondering when this was going to happen.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:04:28] He said, I am so thankful for this. He says, I've just been going because you're making me. But he said, I hadn't believed since I was 11. And I was like, what? Why didn't you talk about this? And he said, well, I didn't think I could.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:04:40] And I felt so bad. And we took him to a park and told him this. And on the drive home, he just said, mom and Dad, I feel, I finally feel like I can be myself now. And I started crying right then and there that I had ever Done anything to make my child feel like he could not be himself and he couldn't talk to us about any. About all the things in his life or in his mind.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:05:04] Yes. So that was a real eye opening thing for me. And my parenting changed after that. And I feel like we have a really good relationship with our children, but I'm no longer controlling them to make certain choices for a certain outcome. I'm just letting them be themselves. And that doesn't mean I don't have expectations for my children, because I do. But those expectations are more of what's making you happy. And are you a good student, a good community member? Are you kind to people? Are you pulling your weight in school, your work, our family? You know, it's those kind of things to make them a good person.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:05:45] But the church milestones, I'm not concerned with. So that was him. Our daughter was immediately just. She thought we were telling her we were going to get a divorce. And when we didn't say that, then she was so mad at her dad for blowing up her life and pulling out. She was only. She was 14, 13, 14.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:06:11] You know, she's forming a lot of beliefs at that time, so that was very difficult for her. For the next year, she barely spoke to Scott. He would come in the room and she would immediately turn angry and not talk to him. And she was so mean to him. Their relationship was very strained and that was really hard for Scott as well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:06:28] We, thankfully Eric was already in therapy. We got Ruby into therapy. Just things that Eric had been experiencing. We got him into therapy. We got her into therapy. Their therapists have helped them so much. And Ruby, that's a big deal.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:42] It is like really for you to recognize that and get them support right then.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:06:47] Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:49] Like all the love to you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:06:51] Yeah, yeah. It's been amazing. So our younger son, he said, thank you. I don't ever. Does this mean I don't have to go to church either? Great. I hate primary. I don't want to sing those songs anymore. I don't want to do it. And I said, fine. So I started attending church by myself.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:07:09] And I'll tell you, one of the biggest surprises to me were other people's reactions to me. I looked for other single women to sit with. One woman I sat next to, who's my neighbor, she gave me a lecture the moment I sat down with her until after the sacrament. During the prayer, she was still lecturing about why I wasn't making my husband and children come to church.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:07:33] Like, I was so shocked by that and just the lack of empathy she had for that, even though she also has children that aren't in the church anymore. I mean, I didn't understand where it was coming from. Other women that would approach me like tears. Oh, it's got to be so hard not having your family here. And it's clearly your experiences that that is sad for you. I'm fine. I know. Like, this is not a sad thing for me by that time. It was not a sad thing. It was more painful to make them come to church than it was to let them just do whatever they were going to do on Sunday.

Margi Dehlin [03:08:10] So you would go to church and be on the receiving end of basically a lot of people's projection around what they. With the plan.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:08:21] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:08:21] They would put it on you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:08:22] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:08:23] Got it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:08:23] Another sister who was going through a divorce came to me because she thought that me and Scott were having issues and were headed that way because he wasn't at church anymore and that I could relate to her. And I was like, no, we're better than ever. And she was so shocked by that.

Margi Dehlin [03:08:40] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:08:42] So people clearly, they just. All these different ideas about was nobody ever approaching me. What's going on? Why isn't Scott. Some people. There were a couple of guys that were good friends and have had struggles themselves, but it was very rare for somebody to say what has happened, that your family is no longer here and that you're here by yourself.

John Dehlin [03:09:02] Would you have wanted them to, or was it too private?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:04] No, I never kept it secret. I never did.

John Dehlin [03:09:08] So you wanted people to show care or concern, and they didn't because there are first.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:14] Right.

John Dehlin [03:09:14] They're afraid.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:15] Right?

John Dehlin [03:09:15] Yeah. Well, can you say what that's like to be the head woman in an entire congregation? Relief Society president, giving all this time and sacrificing when in your heart you don't believe at all.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:09:29] What is it like?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:31] That's difficult. So I went through a lot of emotions of how can I serve out my time at this? How can I teach and testify in a way that feels true to me now, but that still fulfills this mission of being the Relief Society president. And that was difficult. And I threaded the line. I did it. Well.

John Dehlin [03:09:53] Of course you did.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:53] I did.

John Dehlin [03:09:54] Of course you did.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:09:55] Because I know how to say the right things. I know what they want to hear, and I know how to give a talk, a lesson, whatever it is I need to do. And I am someone that they call on a lot to speak. I speak in sacramentine a lot. I would teach lessons a lot I speak to the youth. There's just a lot of topics and things that I can do. Having served in a visitor center, you learn how to stand up in front of people and talk and speak. You do. So I know how to do that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:10:22] I started to not feel good about it. I could not in good faith say, I believe in. I believe in this. And I started even presenting different. Hey, what if we have a lesson on this? And my counselors. So another thing that I'm really good at is pulling people in from the fringes. So, like, single women, divorced women, never married women.

Margi Dehlin [03:10:46] I was gonna ask you about that. Cause now you're having an experience of being outside the box.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:10:51] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:10:52] Of like, you know, this typical Mormon experience. And I think the minute you are, for whatever reason, you all of a sudden look around and you realize all the other people that are on the. So that totally makes sense to me. Well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:11:05] And all of a sudden, like, I realize, oh, they're not coming to church. I wonder what is going on.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:10] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:11:10] Like, all of a sudden, I now have. They're not just lazy and not coming anymore. Oh, my goodness. What is. You know, and, wow. So, yes, but already, even as before this, I really have always paid attention to those on the fringes. Those that perhaps when they share, they have different ideas and beliefs. Maybe their children are lgbtq. Maybe they've had just all these different experiences. And so I tried to call in teachers into Relief Society or people in my presidency that represented many different parts of women in Relief Society.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:11:49] And so. And I love those sisters. I have had always the best experiences with the sisters that I have had the opportunity to serve with. And some of those sisters would like, oh, yeah, I love. Let's talk about that. Let's bring this up. But those that were the orthodox true believing would be like, no.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:12:09] So they always bring you back, and you're like, well, okay, fine, whatever. So I started having a really hard time with teaching. And it comes down from the stake, you know, the area authority, the top. It all comes down, trickles down from the top of the things that you're supposed to teach and testify of and what you're supposed to do. Right. So one of the hardest things that started coming down is there started being this crackdown on women. Women, not everybody, just women wearing garments. So, like, our Stake Relief Society president, she would have the presidents meet at her house, and we would talk about things that were going on, on in our own relief societies.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:12:45] And because they were trying to take things from the bishops and put them on The Relief Society presidents. Okay. Sisters, you need to start having conversations with these sisters that you can see that aren't always wearing their garments like they're supposed to. And I flat out said, I'm not doing that. That's between a sister and God. Well, we know, but. And us. And also us. Right. Yeah. And so it was things like that. And I would start to push back on things, and I'm like, I'm not doing that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:13:13] Or it would be a way of trying to draw sisters in of things that, you know, getting them to do their come follow me at home, like, ensure that's happening. And I'm like, that's none of my business.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:23] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:13:24] You know, things like that.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:25] So you. They're kind of. It sounds like you're getting, what, the responsibility. You're the accountability person. That your job now is kind of this accountability evaluative.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:13:38] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:38] And that is making you uncomfortable.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:13:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:13:41] Did they ever explain why they're so worried about women's underwear garments? You know, for the Never Mormons. That wouldn't have been.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:48] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:13:48] It has to do with keeping people on the covenant path, you know, because if you can keep them wearing their garments, they keep going to the temple, they keep paying tithing. Doesn't everything come back to the money?

Margi Dehlin [03:13:59] I was going to say it came back to tithing pretty quick, too.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:14:02] Yeah. So it's part of that, keeping people on the covenant pass.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:07] So.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:14:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:14:08] That there can also be the modesty thing where women might wear clothing that make men uncomfortable if the garments aren't there, to make sure all the important parts are covered. I don't mean to make that up, but is that a thing?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:14:21] It's a big deal that bishops would talk about to me. Well, we see these women wearing yoga pants all over. There's no way they always have their garments on. In reality, a lot of women wear their garments under yoga pants. But as somebody who's a personal trainer, I am all day in exercise gear. I'm not wearing my garments under those. They're made so you don't wear garments under them. And they're talking to me about what can we do to make sure women. They exercise and then they go put their garments on.

John Dehlin [03:14:47] They would literally have that conversation with you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:14:49] Yes, yes. I had one bishop that said, we see women out doing their yard work and they use that as an excuse not to wear their garments so they can wear other clothing and get. Get sun on. Don't be one of those women. And I was like, well, what if we want to do it in our exercise clothes.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:08] Interesting.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:08] Yeah. So they're having these conversations. That's a really big deal.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:13] The level of preoccupation.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:15] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:15] Over women's.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:18] You're sitting there in front of your bishop talking. He's talking to you about your underwear.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:23] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:24] Nothing is. I mean, yes, there are things that can be more uncomfortable. It is super uncomfortable.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:28] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:15:30] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:31] And of course, they try to do it with tact. Right. There's no way to tactfully really talk about that.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:38] Right, right, right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:39] Yeah. So. But of course, one of the temple questions, too, is, do you wear your garments when you're supposed to as well? And I always felt like I could say yes, but then when I would really think about it, I'd be like, well, I'm not really, but I'm answering yes to it.

John Dehlin [03:15:53] What you mean is different than what they think you mean.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:15:57] And then you start wondering if you're being honest.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:15:58] Exactly. Yes.

John Dehlin [03:16:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:02] So you're having a growing sense of discomfort as you're serving as Relief Society presence. It's getting a bit harder.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:09] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:16:10] So how did it come to a head? Or did it come to a head?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:13] Yes. And again, it was around tidying. So you come in. No, Bishops do. The tithing declaration is what they're calling it now.

John Dehlin [03:16:22] This is 2023 again.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:16:24] So this is a year and a little bit.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:25] This is kind of end of year 2023.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:27] Yeah. So I did not sign up. I just felt like I didn't need to do that. And I felt like this is a choice, and clearly it was not a choice. So I get a text message from the ward secretary, and I wrote this in my outline so I could have it directly and I may have to.

John Dehlin [03:16:47] Yeah, you can read it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:48] Yeah. It says something.

John Dehlin [03:16:49] No problem. No problem.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:50] Is it just to get up to date on this?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:53] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:54] Is it optional to go to the tithing?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:16:56] Of course it is.

John Dehlin [03:16:57] That's how I remember it. We often didn't go, of course it is.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:00] Because I'm like, oh, we always opted out.

John Dehlin [03:17:02] Even when we paid tithing. I'm like, even when we did it. I'm an adult. I'll pay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:17:07] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:17:07] Oftentimes we would donate stock to headquarters so that even our bishop didn't even know what we were paying because it just felt like none of their business.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:17:17] Absolutely. Right. So I get a text. Okay. So Scott and I were out somewhere, and it was. So it was a Saturday evening, November 11, 2023. Our ward executive secretary sent me the following text quote. Tithing settlement with bishop right after church tomorrow. Question period.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:17:36] This is literally not a question, right? Not a question. Yes. And I was like, oh, my gosh, by that time of the day, I'll probably have already had two meetings with the bishop. Right. But I need a special tithing declaration meeting. Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:17:52] So I don't know why it triggered me. I just was so annoyed at that, at this. Like, this is my choice whether I even have this meeting or not. Here he is forcing me to have this. Of course, he sends me this message because he, he's just filling in the schedule and he knows I'm not going to be oppositional to this. He's just putting me in this time slot. He knows I'm going to be there. I will have had this meeting. I'll probably be having this meeting and I'll just be there. So I can just walk right in and have this. And so I start talking about.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:18:22] Anyways, I come to the conclusion I'm not going to put up with it anymore. This is it. So I am going to accept this meeting and I'm going to resign from the bishop, from my calling. I am going to tell the bishop, he's going to release me and I am done serving. I don't care that I still have a year left. I am done.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:41] And was it pretty like, you knew

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:18:43] it pretty quickly, within five or ten minutes. Wow. Yep. And my husband's sitting there like, okay, okay, okay. So I respond to the text, yes, and that was it. So I go in the next day. We have probably. We had our ward council meeting in the morning.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:19:03] I often had a meeting, just me and the bishop. Sometimes it was me and the elders quorum president constantly talking about people in the ward. Right. What we need to do to serve and keep people active and what's going on. So I go in, I sit down and he welcomes me. And he has his. The bishop has his little spiel that he's giving about tithing. He has a clip from the prophet speaking about tithing. And he comes, I can see his screen. He has my name, a box that says yes and a box that says no. And he says, so, Sister Wilson, are you president?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:19:35] He always calls me president, which annoys me, too. President Wilson, are you a full tithe payer? And I said, bishop, this is not why I'm here. I'm come to tell you that it's time for you to release me as your Relief Society president.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:19:50] I will serve through the holidays because there is no way in hell I will let you Call another sister right now before Thanksgiving and make her have the responsibility through the holidays. There's a lot that goes on in being Relief Society President through the holidays. I will serve through the holidays. Come January, it's time for you to have somebody else. And he was so shocked.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:12] I am not surprised.

John Dehlin [03:20:15] Yeah. Because you're the highest ranking woman in the entire congregation.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:18] And I gave him no indication up to this point that this was coming. I have not said one thing like, oh, this is too much for me. Is this causing contention in my marriage? Nothing.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:29] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:29] I have been there every time I'm supposed to be every Sunday. I'm happy to serve. I'm doing a great job. I do a lot of things really well as a Relief Society president. He did not see this coming. There is no reason that I should be saying this. And you do not tell your bishop.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:46] That's right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:46] When to release you.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:48] This is not how it's done.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:49] No.

John Dehlin [03:20:50] Mm.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:51] Yep. You push through and you fulfill your time. Your bishop tells you when you are done.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:57] Mm.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:20:58] And they're usually you're done because they have something else for you. In my experience, it's always because we need you in another place. But as a Relief Society President, we clicked. We did a good job. We did a lot of things together. He is a good bishop, and he is great, and I do respect him as a bishop, although I do know people that have issues with him. But he was shocked, and do you want to tell me why? And I said to him, I can no longer teach and testify in the way that you or the church expects me to, and I won't do it.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:33] Wow.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:21:34] And he said, well, let's talk about that. And I said, absolutely not. I said, when you're released from being bishop, I would love for you to come over and have a conversation with me about my beliefs and where I am with the church, but not while you're bishop. I won't do it. And he got very emotional. He wanted to know if he had done something to offend me or if somebody else had or somebody had offended Scott or just something that happened with the family. And I assured him that wasn't the case, that this was purely. I didn't know what my relationship with the church was going to be. And I said, when you release me, you may not see me. You might. I don't know, but I'm done in January.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:13] Wow. That is just masterful. Really. So clear.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:22:22] What did he say?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:23] He said, okay.

John Dehlin [03:22:24] He didn't try to argue or try and make you Feel bad?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:29] Nope. Not really.

John Dehlin [03:22:30] Was he curious?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:31] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:22:31] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:32] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:33] But you. I feel like it was so clear, like clear communication, so boundaried. Yeah, it was. It's really something. The language you used, is that something that you prepared for ahead of time?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:48] Yeah, I thought ahead of what you

Margi Dehlin [03:22:49] want to say, kind of knowing him, what he might ask you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:22:54] Yes. And also, oh my gosh, credit to Mormon Stories and other podcasts that have talked to people on their way out of the church and the horrible experiences they have had about trying to talk to their leaders about their questions and where they're at and it not going well. And I did not want to put myself or my family through that situation. And so I knew that I couldn't bring. And maybe he would have been better with it. But Rillette, you have no idea.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:22] True.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:23:22] So I didn't want to chance that of having any kind of disciplinary counsel or any of these situations where he or any other leaders were going to try to talk to me about the issues or try to get me to reconcile with any of these issues. I just didn't want to bring that up.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:41] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:23:41] Yep, understood. He said okay. He actually tried to share a story with me, I think with his sister and her husband not being. But like they were in a mixed faith marriage or something. And I. I was just like, that's great for them. That's wonderful. This is where we're at for me. And so he accepted that and he did not bring it up again. And I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I wanted to give him time. I did not bring it up to anybody else, my counselors or anything. It was a total shock and surprise to them as well. He told me on the first week of January that he had the next president already lined up up. He was just working on the counselors, and that the second week of January I would be released.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:25] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:24:26] So Scott came to church with me that day, and I think that was very noticeable. I kind of laughed about it because I was like, Scott is not a little man. Yeah, he's an imposing presence. And so for both of us to walk into church, we sat in the back so the bishopric up on the front could see us. And he released me. And like there was this. You could hear this through the crowd, really. And it was so interesting people. But I totally expected that people might come up to me and talk to me. And nobody did. They left us alone. We sat there.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:07] Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:25:08] And he released us. And it could also. Another thing that is common to do is to invite outgoing presidency to come up and share testimony or talk. And he didn't. Yeah, because he knew that I couldn't teach and testify like he wanted me to. So there was none of that. It was just, we're releasing and here's a new presidency. And then they went on with the meeting.

John Dehlin [03:25:29] And that's gonna leave board members to speculate, is there an affair? Is someone into porn?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:25:34] Right.

John Dehlin [03:25:35] Did you. Did they lose their testimony? You know, all that stuff?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:25:38] Well, I told Scott to be prepared, that everybody was going to blame him for getting me out of the church, because he had, since October, wasn't attending, and neither were our children. And so it already was this thing. And then I'm being released. We walked out of sacrament meeting, we went out to a restaurant, got brunch, and that was it.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:58] Wow. Isn't that something? And that experience of being released after having served, we had that recently with a bishop couple.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:26:06] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:08] Oh, they're escaping my name. Eagle Mountain.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:26:10] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:10] I watched that same thing with them. Did you notice that?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:26:13] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:13] That after a year like him having served, they were both so full tilt, servers for nothing.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:26:22] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:22] It was. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:26:23] Yeah. So I've had interesting experiences. That same day, one of the ladies that was called into the new presidency, she came over, she brought a plate of cookies and sat down with me, and she, maybe it was a few weeks later, wanted me to know how much of an impact I'd had on her. It was very important to me in my Relief Society to make sure unity and friendship has been a real problem in that ward. And I had set out to make our Relief Society feel like any woman could go and feel like she belonged and had friends there. She wanted me to know that I accomplished that.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:58] Oh, that's really.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:27:00] That was so touching.

Margi Dehlin [03:27:00] Yeah. Very personal.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:27:02] Yeah. Made sure that I knew that. So. And I've had lots of women over the last year. So that was January 2024. So we're just past a year now.

Margi Dehlin [03:27:13] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:27:13] People will see me. And I think that most people don't realize they haven't seen me at church in a while. Like, they may think they may attend church and not really recognize that I'm not there, that maybe I have another calling or something, and they just aren't seeing me. But then they see me, and they're like, wait, why haven't I seen you in a while? What are you doing? And, well, I haven't been to church. Oh. And they just go on. They don't really talk about it.

Margi Dehlin [03:27:38] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:27:39] It's. Nobody has really been curious about it. And that blows my mind.

John Dehlin [03:27:44] And it's the most normal and predictable thing I've ever experienced.

Margi Dehlin [03:27:47] Right. That's so common.

John Dehlin [03:27:47] I call it the crickets effect. But everybody's testimony is they're fighting. Everyone's afraid they're gonna lose it. They're fighting to keep it. So, like, it's like they're trying to keep the wheels on the wagon.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:28:00] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:28:00] So the last thing I wanna hear is why some smart, sharp, faithful, committed, you know, capable couple.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:28:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:28:08] Power couple, so to speak. Why they lost their faith, so they just are gonna not talk about it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:28:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:14] Which is hard for you because you had given so much and you had thought they were your friends and you thought that people would show care by seeing if you're okay and what's wrong and that sort of thing. Am I right?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:28:27] There was this impactful. Like, I felt kind of.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:31] Oh.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:28:32] I didn't know how my neighbors were going to respond. And I felt a little like I didn't know how much I wanted to put my foot out there. But I remember by the springtime, we have this great wraparound porch on our house. And I went and I sat on the porch right when everybody was leaving to go to church. And I sat there and I waved to all my neighbors as they drove to church. And I remember that, to me, felt like this statement to my neighbors of, look, I'm not. I'm choosing no longer to join you at church. And that was a big deal. And my daughter came out and she said, mom, what are you doing? I was like, just sitting on the porch. She goes. While everyone goes to church. She laughed and she said, that's nice.

Margi Dehlin [03:29:13] Yeah, I really like that. I think bringing it out, airing it out in the light.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:29:17] Yeah. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:29:19] It was Jared and Camille Johnson. I just wanted to give them a.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:29:23] I really loved that episode and really related a lot to what they had to say.

John Dehlin [03:29:27] And did your daughter end up. You said for a year she was mad at your husband.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:29:31] She's good now.

John Dehlin [03:29:32] Good meaning what?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:29:34] So, like this.

John Dehlin [03:29:37] You don't have to say it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:29:38] No. Like. Like one of the best things that has come out of this is our ability to have good conversations with our teenagers. Like, the things that they open up about now is what every parent wants. Right. So they. We have conversations. I'm able to say, well, what do you believe about God and how do you feel about that? And what is your experience teaching you? And they're trying to form their own belief about God and Jesus or not God and not Jesus. Whatever it is they want, they're able to articulate that the most important thing is how we treat each other. And it doesn't matter if I am at church or if I drink coffee or not.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:30:20] You know, like, our kids are forming their own identity. And there's nothing wrong with forming your identity around a religion. Right. There can be so many good things about that. But in this case, it has been better not to have this identity of this religion.

Margi Dehlin [03:30:38] Right.

John Dehlin [03:30:38] For her.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:30:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:30:40] For either of your kids.

Margi Dehlin [03:30:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:30:42] Okay.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:30:42] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:30:43] And I think that's the real benefit, is that now, you know, you'll have children that are connecting with themselves, informing their own identity, and in that process, you will be actively connecting with. With them as they do so. So you'll actually know them.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:31:01] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:31:02] Which isn't always the case.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:31:03] Right? Yeah. And there's so much fear of, well, how am I going to raise good children if I don't have this structure of the church? But then as soon as you step back, you realize, well, look at all of the families in the world that don't have this structure of the church and have amazing people. Right. So I, of course, I resisted. Like, I asked Scott to keep going to church for our children, and I wanted to keep having. Come follow me or I. That we found uplift kids. I loved that. And that brought in a lot of discussions. And now we can sit down and have our own discussions about whatever our kids are thinking about and facing and coming up.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:31:41] And they have all kinds of things going on in their lives and with their friends, and we're able to have these honest discussions. I've been amazed at how comfortable our children's friends feel in our presence in our home. And, like, our kids will share with us our first.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:31:56] They want a hug from you, or they love you, or they feel so accepted by you and they're friends that even their own parents are having a hard time accepting. And yet they're finding acceptance in our home. And I feel so honored by that.

Margi Dehlin [03:32:10] Yeah. Yeah. You're offering them a safe space in the world, which is no small thing right now. Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:32:19] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:32:20] So I don't want to assume, but I'm guessing your marriage is healthier now than at least during those dark times where he was. Where y' all were on the different pages.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:32:30] Yes. Because we have taken opportunity to not only deconstruct our religion, but our relationship. We talk a lot about deconstructing patriarchy. We talk and within society. And, you know, we'll never be free of that because our society is built on that. But there's a bunch we can deconstruct in our own home, in our relationship. But he also has lots of women that work for him in his company and it's helped improve his relationship with them as well. It's opened his eyes to a lot of the struggles that women and women in the workplace and women in society face. And it's made him a better boss and a better co worker. And yeah, our relationship is so much better. There is not anything that we cannot talk about anymore. And that's a treasure.

Margi Dehlin [03:33:18] That is a treasure.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:33:19] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:33:20] Yeah.

Life After Mormonism and Final Reflections

John Dehlin [03:33:21] And then I'm thinking back to your childhood and teen and young adult and adult self, just so committed to the church. How are you dealing with no longer being an active, faithful, super devout Mormon, just in terms of your own identity, your own mental health, your visions for your future, all that?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:33:42] Yeah. So when I walked out of church in that January, I, I said, let's see what life is going to be like right now. This feels like the right thing. And until something stops me and brings me back, this is the way I'm headed. And I love Sundays now. Sometimes I go out for dirt church, which means I go on a hike or a mountain bike ride. I find so much peace and contentment and spirituality in nature. I haven't missed it. I find my life is so full anyways, that it's so much better. My kids, when I there the first Sunday, I didn't go to church, my kids came down on Sunday and I was sitting on the couch and they said, why aren't you going to church? I said, I'm here for you today.

John Dehlin [03:34:31] What?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:34:32] Really? They were so happy about that. And I was like, I didn't know you felt that way. And they're like, well, you get up and we, we don't see you all day on Sunday, you're gone. And I, well, why didn't you let me know that? Well, that's just what you do, mom, you know, And I was like, oh my gosh. Even the little amount that I was, I mean, little amount I was giving, I was giving a lot they're aware of and just having their mom home and available, especially as teenagers. I mean, it's one thing you think they need you as little kids, but when they're teenagers, they have a lot more to talk to you about than they do as little kids.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:35:06] And so to be more available where I am not gone on this Tuesday night or this Wednesday night or all day Sunday or this Saturday activity, it makes a big deal. It's a big deal

John Dehlin [03:35:19] a lot of times. Again, I'll ask the identity question. And then also there's spirituality. You said nature fills that some. But then there's also afterlife, dealing with death. What's the purpose and meaning of life? What about all that existential stuff for you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:35:36] That's very good. I don't mind not having answers to that. I do not have. I am not concerned about it. I don't feel discomfort or. I'm not unsettled about that. My grandmother passed away during this time. My mom's mom, she was 98. She passed away during November of 2022. So I was not believing. So we went to her funeral, and it was very interesting to sit there. Wow. Mormon funerals are interesting, right?

Margi Dehlin [03:36:12] Yes.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:36:13] Just another teaching opportunity. Right. And my mom, of course, is convinced that her dad came back to help her mother pass through the veil and is there. And she's with her dad, of course. I mean, who's to say they're not. We are not the only religion that believes in that kind of afterlife. Right. When you go on your mission, you realize everybody believes in eternal families. They're just not teaching it the same way. And they don't believe you have to be sealed in the temple for that. So I don't know what it is. And I'm okay saying I don't know. I am okay saying I don't know for a lot of things now, Right?

Margi Dehlin [03:36:51] Yep. You're living the question.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:36:52] I know. And does that feel weird? Like, I like, how can you have so much peace saying I don't know?

Margi Dehlin [03:37:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:37:01] Because really none of us do.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:37:03] Right.

John Dehlin [03:37:04] None of us ever did.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:37:05] Right.

John Dehlin [03:37:05] I'm reminded of Noah Rashetta's secular Buddhism podcast where he talked about, we're all falling. You know, we just. There's no groundlessness. Groundlessness is what you know. Even when we were most convinced and certain that we knew what happens when we die and that there's a God and we knew where we were going, we didn't know. And we probably knew deep down in our hearts we didn't know, we just decided to start saying we knew when we didn't. So once we just realized we're all falling, we always were falling. Even when we had talked ourselves into thinking we weren't falling, then you get comfortable with groundlessness.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:37:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:37:42] You don't to have that, you learn to navigate. I mean, that's what Noah says. Is that what you mean?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:37:47] Yes, it resonates with me very much so. Yeah. There's this point where you See, well, my parents believed this, my grandparents believed this, all these wonderful leaders in the church believe this. Everybody is telling me this thing. It's easy to believe. It's okay to say it's like this, but then, yeah, we don't really know. No one's come back and said, this is how it is up to you anyway, right?

Margi Dehlin [03:38:07] That's right. I was just going to say one thing as a follow up, and that is, I think it's. Do you find it is a profoundly different experience to live life with a sense of curiosity and not knowing than how you used to engage with life when you felt like you had all the answers and if you could speak to the difference? Because I view it as a profoundly different way to engage with a day.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:38:34] Yeah. So if you take, for example, a Sunday, you knew. I knew that I had to go to church to worship God, to keep the Sabbath day holy, to have this kind of experience, because it was going to set me up, how I. How the Spirit would influence me, my family, in my home, and us in the next life. Now I can wake up on Sunday and say, what is this day going to bring? I'm going to go. I have these women that I mountain bike with. I'm going to go mountain biking with them. I'm going to make this wonderful dinner. I wonder who of my family is going to show up and are we going to have a great discussion around Family Day?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:39:10] And if they don't, it's not gonna hurt my feelings. It's just, what is this day going to bring? And it doesn't mean you don't set out your goals. You know, we do set a lot of goals for things in our lives, but our expectations around meeting those goals are very different now.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:39:26] I love living with curiosity in my relationships, in myself. Like, I'm making this choice. I wonder how this is gonna feel. I wonder how this will feel in my body.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:37] There's like an exploration kind of piece of it. How about with regard to your relationship with curiosity and learning, like, if you're curious, you know, do you find yourself being drawn to understanding different things or reading different things because you realize you don't actually know everything.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:39:57] So the first thing that I was very curious about after this was the Bible. So I've listened to so many podcasts and read books by scholars outside of Mormonism surrounding Jesus and the Bible, and I found that fascinating as well. But the things that I am most interested in is as a personal trainer. I'm really into women's fitness and health and not just women's. I also train men. And so I am constantly studying and absorbing information around health and fitness, what we can do to make the quality of life better.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:40:29] And I do feel like this curiosity resonates with that because I have been passionate about that for years. Years. I'm super passionate, especially about women living their best quality of life as they age and so absorbing all of the information that I can. And there is so much out there around that. So you can find me on any given day. I'm mostly listening to podcasts and books surrounding that information. But then I'm also building relationships. I love working on relationships with my husband and my children. I have children with add, adhd.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:41:00] And so that's very neuro atypical. Right. And so I'm constantly. Well, how does that affect them and what can we do for our relationship with this? I'm very interested in women reaching menopause and how that affects and how we can make that experience better for women.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:41:15] How fitness and health, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of that go into quality of life as we age and get older, and how we can take care of ourselves the best that we can. So for some women, that includes the church, and for some it doesn't.

Margi Dehlin [03:41:30] Right.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:41:30] So there's been, even in my personal training practice, there's been women that I've opened up to about my experience, and some I won't, some that most of them just assume I'm still in the same place, you know, in the church. And we have conversations about them taking their children to the temple, and that's beautiful and wonderful.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:41:47] So I do personal training out of my home, and it's not in a gym. I have a gym in my home. And so it's just me and that person. It is very personal. So there are a lot of things I hear from women and have over the years about their own experience in the church and their marriages, and that's influenced me a lot in my own relationship as well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:42:07] And so the experience that I've been through just gives me a richer experience to draw through from, to help these women as well. So I don't know. Did that answer your question of living life? Yeah, so. And I'm often, I'm so curious also about different people's experience with things that impact to bring them to the point where they're at, that it's impacting their own health and fitness and mental health as well. I mean, I wish that I had all this mental health training as well. What you need in personal training is not Just the physical fitness, but the mental as well is a huge part of that.

Margi Dehlin [03:42:43] Right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:42:46] I have a lot of Christian listeners who get really grouchy that so many people who leave the Mormon Church don't keep Christ.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:42:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:42:57] And they kind of blame me. They're like, are you filtering? Are you screening out Christians? You know? No, I'm not. I have no idea what my interviewees think about Jesus, you know what I mean? And I'm totally supportive if people hold on to Jesus in the Bible, if that's what works for them. So stop blaming me for that. It's not what I'm doing. But I'll ask you anyway. Are you like still identifying as a Christian? Did you try out a Christian church? If not, why? What is it about Jesus in the Bible that hasn't. You've just made it so you didn't hold onto it.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:43:33] Yeah. So I thought that is interesting as well. And I do think because we are so definitive with Joseph Smith's first vision and how he has described Jesus and it's much different than what other Christians describe as Jesus, Jesus.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:43:49] It's natural for us just to deconstruct him all the way. Right. So I don't not believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in a God in the way that Mormon Church teaches. Even when I became a mother, I started often in my prayers. Hey, Mother in heaven, you know, just kind of out of the side of my mouth. Are you there? I kind of need some guidance right now as a mother and I knew that that was not appropriate, but I just felt this connection of like I need. So for me to have God as this father patriarchal figure, all consuming was never enough for me.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:44:29] I always wanted that. So to have God the way the Mormon Church teaches. I don't believe in that. I told you that I graduated in Earth and space science education, so I very much. Physics, physical science is something that I have had a lot of experience with. There is this energy that connects all of us throughout the universe. Is that God? I don't know. I don't know.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:44:54] Was Jesus a real person? Probably most likely. Is he the way that he the Bible, this, all of this strung together in the Bible? Probably not, but I'm not throwing him out. I love the teachings of Jesus and I think that the teachings of Jesus, Jesus make us better people. But as far as. Yep, that's something that I continue to rebuild.

John Dehlin [03:45:18] All right, well, this has been an amazing story. Very, very powerful, very uplifting, very inspiring. I'm curious if either Margi you have any other final questions or if, Jen, there's any other final messages you want to leave for everyone?

Margi Dehlin [03:45:37] I think I do have a final question, just to kind of bring it back to the question I asked earlier about, you know, what you. What messages you took in about who you are, your identity. And maybe for me, it would feel great to end asking you an update to that.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:46:00] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [03:46:01] And I think. I think we all are rebuilding, right? As long as we breathe, hopefully we'll be actively rebuilding.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:46:09] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:46:09] So for now, it's like a picture frame of this moment. You.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:46:15] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [03:46:16] But if I were gonna ask, especially with some of those things that were conveyed to you that maybe were no longer. They were never for you. They weren't meant for you, you know? But what are some key aspects when you think about yourself with regard to your identity now?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:46:36] I love the thought that mediocre is wonderful, that my style of mothering and homemaking, my style of being an athlete or a working woman. I don't aspire to stand out by being exceptional or not a natural. I love hitting this mediocre, and it makes me really happy.

Margi Dehlin [03:47:01] So liberating.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:47:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:47:04] See, I've just always loved being mediocre. Welcome to the club.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:47:08] Okay. Yeah. And I love that it is liberating. It is liberating to know that I don't have to be perfect in anything and that I don't have to be ashamed or feel guilt for the way that I choose to spend my time. There was a long time where I felt. I felt so guilty about dedicating so much of my time to athletics or fitness and health. And that when I finally became a personal trainer and was making a living at that, that my mom was finally like, oh, now it's okay, because now you're making a living at it. But why can't I just do it? Because this is what I'm passionate about. Right. And our situation allows me to be like that. But I love what I do now. But being mediocre is very liberating.

John Dehlin [03:47:54] Yeah.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:47:56] So, yeah. So my identity. I don't have to feel like I need to be a daughter of God as my identity anymore. I'm a queen, all in just who I am.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:10] Yeah, that's right. Yep.

John Dehlin [03:48:14] Beautiful. Beautiful. Inspiring. Well, I've loved. I've loved your story. So, Jen, thank you so much for being willing to come on Mormon Stories.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:48:24] Thank you for taking the time to hear it.

John Dehlin [03:48:26] Anything else you want to share or do you feel like you got it all out?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:48:30] I want people to know that while it is scary to actually take a look at what you believe or why you believe it, that there's a soft landing on the other side. It feels so devastating. It can feel so devastating. And yet walking through that devastation and coming out on the other side is so beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:54] Yeah. Yes. It's a gift.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:48:56] It is. Yeah. And to find people that want to hear what you have to say and will accept you, they're out there, and you just need to be brave enough to try and connect with them.

John Dehlin [03:49:09] Wait, even in Utah County?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:49:10] Especially in Utah County.

John Dehlin [03:49:12] Even in the highland, Alpine.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:49:15] Yes, 100%.

Margi Dehlin [03:49:16] We know that firsthand.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:49:18] Yes. Yes. They're there. And they're like, have open arms. Yeah. There's no limit to the amount of people. Like, love is so big. Right. And the more people just getting to know people, you love them better. And there's a safe place on the other side.

Margi Dehlin [03:49:36] Beautiful. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:49:37] And if someone wants to hire you as a fitness coach or trainer, how do they get ahold of you?

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:49:42] Instagram and Facebook. I get fitwithjen.

John Dehlin [03:49:46] Gen 1N or 2:1. I get fit with Gen 1N, Instagram or Facebook.

Margi Dehlin [03:49:53] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:49:53] All right, beautiful. Well, thanks, Jen. Thanks for joining some Mormon stories.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:49:59] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:50:00] And Margi, thanks for being along.

Margi Dehlin [03:50:02] Absolutely. Thank you.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:50:03] We appreciate you.

John Dehlin [03:50:05] And as we always do, Please subscribe on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok like this. All that helps with the algorithms. We couldn't do this without our donors. So if you're a monthly donor or an annual donor, thank you. Your donations make this possible. If you value this content and you aren't a donor, but you want to see, continue to pay it forward.

John Dehlin [03:50:30] You can become a monthly donor by going to MormonStories.org, clicking on the donate button. Becoming a monthly donor. Also check out Gift of the Mormon faith crisis@mormonfaithcrisis.com it's free. It can really help you. So many people reach out to me and they're like, I lost my faith, but I don't know how to tell my spouse. Or I lost my faith, but how do we raise good kids? Or I lost my faith, but how do I tell my bishop? It's all in the gift of Mormon faith crisis. Mormonfaithcrisis.com it's all there. How do I not blow up my life? You know what I mean? I mean, how do I deal with spirituality now and not having a belief in God, but I still want to be spiritual?

John Dehlin [03:51:06] Or how do we deal with family rituals? Or how do I deal with my anger? It's all there, people. Mormonfaithchrisis.com, we should just have an ad. We should, like, have an ad for our own content and just share it that way. Anyway, thanks for supporting that as well.

Jennifer Jeppson Wilson [03:51:21] You're welcome. Thank you for having it.

John Dehlin [03:51:23] Yeah, yeah. And you know, we always welcome your feedback. We read the comments on YouTube so you can leave them there. You can email us@mormonstoriesmail.com there's a little feedback form@mormonstories.org you can fill out. And if you want to like Jen, be on Mormon Stories, all you gotta do is apply. So go to MormonStories.org, click on the apply to be on the show, record a little video, fill out the form. Margi will review it. And we can't promise everyone who applies can get on on, but if you want to get on, that's how you do it. So we are always looking for interesting stories of Mormons. So check it out. And anyway, regardless, thanks for joining us. We love our listeners, we love our viewers. 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.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.