Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. And you are

Margi Dehlin [00:00:09] your other host. I'm Margi Delin.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] And we are super excited for today's interview. It is March 25, 2023, and we're doing something kind of historic, I believe today on Mormon Stories Podcast. We do have a history of interviewing a few, well, lots of former Mormon bishops on Mormon Stories podcast. And now I believe two or three times we've interviewed people who are actively serving as bishops while they were doing an interview. So obviously Bill Real was a bishop when we first interviewed him. And just recently we interviewed a Mormon bishop from Mexico that wanted to talk about some undue pressure he was experiencing to misreport some statistics. But what we've never, ever done is interviewed an actively serving Mormon bishop and his partner who is, and I don't know exactly how to phrase it, either had a full blown faith crisis or has lost his or their faith or is currently in one. But I was really honored when Zane and Tina Beard from Australia reached out to do a Mormon Stories podcast interview. So, Zane and Tina Beard, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Tina Beard [00:01:26] Thanks.

Zane Beard [00:01:26] Thank you. It's great to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] So it's, it's pretty early there in Australia, right?

Zane Beard [00:01:31] It's nearly 6am yeah.

Tina Beard [00:01:34] So thanks for the pitter patter of feet. Soon.

Zane Beard [00:01:38] Yeah, we're doing the missionary schedule.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] Okay.

Zane Beard [00:01:41] We're back up at 6.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] Up at 6. Yeah.

Zane Beard [00:01:44] Yep, we're doing it.

John Dehlin [00:01:45] Well, we're really grateful and kind of honored and it's with some reverence that we interview you today.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:53] Maybe.

Current Church Status and Reasons for the Interview

John Dehlin [00:01:53] Before we jump into your Mormon story, Zane and Tina, do you want to talk about kind of your current status in the church and why you're choosing to do the interview now? And also why we've chosen to hold this interview until a later date. Maybe, maybe we can kind of get intentions out of the way so that then we could jump into your story.

Zane Beard [00:02:17] Okay, great. I think I'll go first. But I'm, yeah, I'm a currently serving bishop. I've been a bishop just over three years, Convert to the church, have loved the church, have, have had lots of wonderful experiences in the church, spiritual experiences, enjoyed my time serving as a bishop. It's been a challenge. Like every bishop will say today. My, I think the, the one thing for me is Tina would share her story, but Tina, I would say lost, lost her faith. And, and I've been working with a lot of people in, in with, with her and other people in the ward in a faith crisis. And it's then helped me, like I've. I've got to a point where I've just examined my own faith for the first time. You know, never really allowed it myself to question my faith or doubt it. You know, I've never. Just never allowed myself to. And then, you know, for the last year, I did that for the first time. And, and it's been scary, it's been exciting, it's been around, you know, just a roller coaster. But why I'm here today is through. Through going through my faith crisis. And I, I don't know if I'm definitely can say I've finished or anything like that, but I feel like there's probably other bishops in the church who are helping people, working with them, and through the, the course of that, we may forget that it impacts their faith too. And they learn new things and they come to understand things and they feel disingenuous sometimes trying to help people in the faith crisis when they, they themselves don't understand how that could be the case, you know, and, and I'm hoping that as people listen to my story, they, and particularly if they're serving as a bishop or they have been or they're in other callings like this, that they realize that they're not alone and that it's okay and that it's normal to have these experiences. Well, at least it has been for me, you know, and, and, and to give this perspective that might be missing because others might be afraid to, to talk up and to, to. To talk about it. And that, that's. So that's why I'm sharing my story today. What about you, honey?

Tina Beard [00:04:41] For me, I think as a bishop's wife, it's. There's culturally a stigma around how you should perform as a bishop's wife and how the attitude, I guess, that you should have. And for me, my faith crisis has been very long and drawn out and started well before we got married. And I guess through the callings that Zayn's had, I've had to, I want to say, be a doormat almost to, to his service in the church and take a step back and focus solely on raising our family. And I think that culture in the church needs to change. And for me, as a bishop's wife, it's been very, very difficult to be able to accept that it's okay for my husband to go out and serve other people while I'm at home with my four children, scrambling to get life going and functioning in a Normal way. So I, for me, I just want the women to be heard.

Zane Beard [00:05:59] And I think one thing we didn't say is around is why we're. Why we're filming it now is because we are going to move and we're going to be moving out of the ward and what will. Will be released. And no one knows our story, really. We've just got one or two really close friends that know our story. And we want to have this as a bit of a time capsule in time as. As we're serving, you know, as I'm serving as a bishop and, and worked with John and Maggie about having it released one time released. And so to avoid, you know, so I can have the benefit of sharing my story in the moment, you know, while it's happening and while I'm serving, but at the same time release it when I don't have to have the. The put some of the members through the sadness of seeing their bishop on Mormon stories and going through a faith crisis and, and trying, you know, we'll release it once. Once this, you know, I've been released and we've moved forward and we can do that. So we're trying to get the best of both worlds.

Tina Beard [00:07:03] Yeah. And I'll also say that Zane has a genuine desire to help people, and he has helped so many people in ways that only he can do because of his personality and his zealousness to help people.

John Dehlin [00:07:19] Beautiful. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:22] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] And just to kind of hit it right off the bat, how. How would Zayn, you and Tina, each of you describe the status of your Mormon faith or testimonies right now?

Zane Beard [00:07:36] You know, well, that you've gone straight, straight for the kill. John, I would say. Do you want to go first?

Margi Dehlin [00:07:46] Okay.

Zane Beard [00:07:46] Okay. Put me on the line. Okay. I would say I have a deep love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I wouldn't say I know that they are real, but I'm choosing to believe and have hope. I've seen a lot of wonderful things happen when people have tried to be their best selves, you know, and care for other people. I've seen a lot of wonderful things happen in the church. I've had a lot of. I have a lot of spiritual experiences that I also, you know, grapple with and understand. I don't believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. And there's things about the church, church history, that's, that's real, it's not fake. It's very concerning. I. I believe my spiritual experiences that I've had in my relationship with God's not unique to the church. And that's been a hard thing to accept, you know, like just real. Just realizing, hey, you can have experiences. It doesn't mean Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the church is true as such. I think there is truth in the church like other churches, and there is a lot of goodness in the church, too. There's a lot of things that aren't good. And. And as you open your eyes and. And see some of this, you get to see the different perspectives and understand it. So I. I couldn't get up and say, I know the church is true like I used to, you know, all the time, but there's still things I hold on to and. And have about my own faith. But I don't think it's particularly unique to Mormonism per se. Yeah. What about you, honey?

Tina Beard [00:09:38] I would say that I believe in spirituality. I believe that we're spiritual beings and we have. The power within ourselves to make incredible things happen when we meditate and focus on our needs and other people's needs. And my testimony is not one that I would consider to be a Mormon testimony at all.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] Okay, well, I know that's a. That's a really direct and tough question, but I guess I just wanted to start with understanding where that was so that people. I mean, the. I think the crux of today's interview is, you know, how. How did this happen? And telling the story of how you got to where you were. I'm constantly being reached out to by bishop, bishops, stake presidency members, stake high councilmen, actively serving Mormon missionaries. And up until now, everyone's afraid to actually be interviewed while they're in their callings. And. But that's. The more and more this is happening, the more and more challenging it is for the people who are. Who are experiencing it. So, Zane, I love that you set the intention of telling your story for the benefit of other bishops, and Tina, for you other bishops, wives, so that anyone holding in a. And also CES instructors, you know, members of the church, education system, BYU employees. This is becoming more and more of a problem. And so, you know, Mormon stories has always been about just letting people tell their story so that others don't. Like you said, Tina. So that others don't feel crazy and so they don't feel alone and so that they can get encouragement and support for what they're going through. So. So thank you both so much.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:40] Thanks.

Zane Beard [00:11:41] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Maybe. Maybe. Tina, sounds like you were born and raised in the church, Is that correct?

Tina Joins the Church and Early Belief

Tina Beard [00:11:49] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:11:51] What if we have you tell just a little bit of your Mormon background first.

Tina Beard [00:11:55] Sure. So my family comes from New Zealand and I'm third generation Mormon. My grandparents joined when they got married and on both sides. So my both grandparents. So I was born and raised in the church in Australia and my dad served as bishop.

John Dehlin [00:12:16] What part?

Tina Beard [00:12:18] It's called Beanley and so we're kind of in between the Gold coast and Brisbane City.

John Dehlin [00:12:28] Okay.

Tina Beard [00:12:29] So we're 30 minutes from the Gold coast and 30 minutes from the SID from the city center. And my childhood in the church was lovely. It was great. I had, we had a wonderful community and so many of my family members were stayed in New Zealand and so our church friends were friends that my parents had from youth and they became our family because we had no family here and that's a very Kiwi thing to do is we called everyone auntie and uncle. So a lot of our church friends were, became family to us and we had a lot of fun growing up. There were lots of activities, there were road shows, there were so many activities that we were involved in and it was great for our childhood. There's five of us in my family, two girls and three boys and my dad was called as bishop and he served for four years and during that time my mum was called as seminary teacher and so that was really full on. Everything we did was for church. We didn't, you know, we did the other things. We did sports and things like that. But aside from that it was. Church was our life and it was, it was great. My best friends were in the church and I already always had a great social life and I didn't ever question anything I think because it was so fun and my social life was taken care of. I had no reason to question. As I got a bit older my, I didn't like some of my leaders and things like that and I didn't want to go to events or youth activities and my parents would always use the phrase, you know, you've got to be in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. And that was church and that was youth activities and that was dances.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:38] So

Tina Beard [00:14:41] from there I, I went into ysa, did all the YSA things and then I moved to Europe so soon after we were dating. So we started dating when I was 19.

Zane Beard [00:14:58] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:59] And

Tina Beard [00:15:01] Zane was a non member and so that was a really big deal for my family. My mum was not happy about it and didn't want us to get serious. But we really liked each other and we had common interests. We both surfed And I'd grown up surfing. My dad would take us surfing on the weekends and before school, school and things like that. And so we naturally gravitated to each other and met through my older brother, who was not active at the time, and he would go to school parties and he met Zayn at school parties. And so this was a big deal for my brother and family friends because they knew Zayn from school and parties and things. And Zayn was pretty wild and fun.

Zane Beard [00:15:52] Not anymore boring as now.

Tina Beard [00:15:55] So they were kind of like, tina, you can't date this guy. So we dated on and off, and there was a lot of pressure to break up with Zayn because he wasn't a member. And then Zane joined the church and that was a long story that we'll get into later. But after that I moved to Europe and stayed there for about a year. And then I came home and decided it was time for me to serve a mission. And so I served a mission in New Zealand. But prior to that, going through the temple was the beginning of my undoing, if you will.

John Dehlin [00:16:38] What happened?

Tina Beard [00:16:42] So the. The family network that we had created from moving to Australia and all these family friends, we were all very close. And so when I went through the temple, everyone that had known me from when I was a child came. They were all invited. It was such a monumental experience for. For this. It was like I had, you know, you told about it your whole life and then you see your parents wearing garments and things like that and it's. You are taught to believe that going through the temple is the ultimate in Mormonism. You know, you've made it when you go through the temple and take out your endowments. And friends that had gone through before me had said, oh, it's just beautiful. It's so amazing. And when I went through, the first thing I remember was sitting down and looking over and my dad was on the other side of the room and I was like, this is weird. Why can't I sit with my dad? Because I'm very close with my dad and my mom at this point. Oh, well, I still am. And. And then when I saw him put on the cap, I looked to my mom and I was like, what? And I started laughing and she was kind of like, you can't laugh in here kind of thing. I was like, what the heck? And then they went through. When the temple session started, I just leaned over to my mum and she could see it on my face. And I kept seeing my dad, like, peer over like this, like, is she all right? And I just turned to my mom, and I was like, this is a cult. And she was like, dana. And I just. I was mortified. I just could not fathom that. Every single person in this room I have known my whole life, and no one has uttered a word about this seriousness of these covenants that I'm making and. And anything. Anything about it. You know, I'd done temple prep, and I was angry, and I. I refused to go up because for the prayer circle, my mum was like, you should go. And I said, no, I'm not doing that. And that was the first time I'd ever really said, no, this is not right. And it was really shocking for my mum. And I refused to go through the veil. And I was just really angry that all these people that I loved and trusted and admired and had looked up to, my whole life, my whole community, I felt betrayed. I felt like this dark secret had been kept from me. And it was really, really hard. And everybody went through the veil, and I was just sitting there. Like, no one. No one told me about these promises that I had to make. No one told me. I don't even know what they are. And it's just crazy. And in my mind, all my other friends were like, oh, it's so lovely. I was like, where's the lovely stuff? That was kind of the beginning of my questioning and my undoing.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:11] Around, Tina, around what year did you go through the temple to serve a mission? Just to give me a sense of timeline.

Zane Beard [00:20:19] 2007.

Tina Beard [00:20:20] Terrible. With dates.

Zane Beard [00:20:21] 2007.

Tina Beard [00:20:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:22] Okay. All right. Okay. Let me just ask you, before that temple experience, Tina, how tender were your feelings towards the church? Towards the, you know, Heavenly Father, the Savior, the Book of Mormon, the Prophet? You know, just how would you have characterized your testimony? Maybe prior to that mission, that. That temple experience,

Tina Beard [00:20:51] I would characterize myself as full believing. I loved everything about the gospel.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:57] I.

Tina Beard [00:20:59] You know, I felt inspired that I needed to serve a mission. I felt like that was my calling and that I. I had this great love to go and save these people. And I really. I. I loved everything about it. I loved the church. Even when I was living in Europe, I was on my own. I would travel by train for two hours to go to this little branch in Switzerland, and that was two hours each way on my own, you know, so it was. I loved it. It was a beautiful part of my life, and I wanted to share that with people.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] And in terms of your beliefs about family and heaven and the afterlife and. And temple work and the ordinances and you know, what, what, what was kind of your Mormon vision for what the purpose of life was?

Tina Beard [00:21:52] Oh, it was solely to get married and have children and have an eternal family. That was, that was the dream. That was the fairy tale. And, and my belief in that was just so absolute. There was no questioning that, there was no, that that couldn't be true.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] Right.

Tina Beard [00:22:13] There was no question that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God, that, you know, the Book of Mormon was not true. That would be crazy.

Zane Beard [00:22:22] Right?

John Dehlin [00:22:23] Yeah.

Tina Beard [00:22:23] And other people that had left were like, what's wrong with them? You know, how can they not believe this?

John Dehlin [00:22:31] Yeah. How was your mission experience?

Tina's Sister Missionary Experience

Tina Beard [00:22:37] It was good. I mean, it was hard. It was really hard. I think being a sister missionary is hard. And I, at that time, it was hard because there was still the culture that, you know, if you're not married, that's what you do. You, you serve a mission because you've got no options. So I mean, I had a good time. I, I loved the people and I learned a lot of really valuable lessons and it was really challenging a lot of the time, but I felt like I was in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time in my life. So Heavenly Father was going to bless me for that and I was helping other people come unto Christ. So it was hard, but I felt like I was doing what I had to do.

Shock and Trauma of the Temple Ceremony

Margi Dehlin [00:23:36] I'm curious if you had to kind of describe the impact or how you processed this temple experience that you had, just because it sounds like such a shock and a juxtaposition in many ways to what you were expecting. Like, did you compartmentalize it and kind of just put it away? Did it sort of infiltrate other areas? How would you talk about, you know, what you did with that, what you did with that experience that felt. Yeah,

Tina Beard [00:24:09] well, I, I remember going home and talking to my parents about it and my dad kind of said to me, you just need to go again, you just need to go again. And so I went again a few days later and I guess I just had to put the crazy away. I had to just say, okay, well it's not crazy, it's normal. And that's how I dealt with it. I was like, this is just church normal. Everyone else is okay with it. Why do I have such a problem with it? And what I didn't explain before was my cousin had a non member husband and he would go and support everybody that of his friends and family that would go through the temple and he would sit outside and wait for you. To come out and then we'd go and have dinner or whatever. And so it was kind of. This is why it was this big celebratory experience. And so my cousin Jermaine was sitting outside and he said to his wife, when I came out, he was like, what the heck goes on in there? I've never seen Tina look so pale. She looks like she's seen a ghost. And he was kind of like, really, really alarmed by the way that I looked when I came out. And so I wasn't. I. I didn't want to talk about it because my mom at the time was like, well, she told me later that she was traumatized by this experience, but I couldn't, I couldn't process it. It was too much crazy for me. And it was so foreign to anything that I had ever experienced in my life. And so I just had to put it away. I had to just put it aside because there was no one that I could talk to about it. And there was no answers. There was no reason as to why I was never told about it, as to why everyone else was okay with it.

John Dehlin [00:26:14] Mm.

Tina Beard [00:26:16] So I just had to carry on. I just had to put the crazy away.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:23] Just a follow up. So in thinking about your relationship with the temple, kind of moving forward from that point, did you find that you avoided, did you avoid going to the temple? Did you look at it like, you know, I'm going to tackle this thing, I'm going to have, I'm going to figure it out like everyone else is, you know, fine with it and saying how inspiring it is, or so, you know, I'm gonna kind of like, how. What was your relationship with the temple after that?

Tina Beard [00:26:55] I hated it. I hated going. So I got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. And so this was just recently, a couple of years ago. And so I understand now it is a very boring, long process. So, no, I did not want to go back. I struggled to sit through a two hour session and focus on what they were saying. You know, every. Everyone was kind of like, you know, just listen to the message. You just gotta look for the messages. And I just couldn't. I hated it. And so going on my mission, we had days where we would have to go to the temple and do two sessions back to back. And I was like, I just can't do it. I just can't do it. And so I'd find reason, like a reason not to go, or I would just take lollies and put them in my pocket so that I could just get Some kind of stimulation during this session or fall asleep. That was my only way to get through it. I would just fall asleep.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:07] Yeah.

Zane Beard [00:28:09] If they don't change your high priest, it would have been okay to fall asleep through the endeavor.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:17] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:28:19] Oh, go ahead.

Tina Beard [00:28:21] No, I. I couldn't tackle it. And even after we got married, you know, there were couples that were like, let's do weekly temple nights. And I was like, oh, I just can't. I just. It never got okay for me.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:34] Yes, I hear that.

John Dehlin [00:28:36] I think you had the same experience, right?

Margi Dehlin [00:28:38] Very, very similar.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:40] I love the lollies idea. That would have been fabulous.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] I think Margi went once or twice and then never really went back.

Tina Beard [00:28:48] Yeah, I think a lot of women have that same experience. We've got friends that, you know, got married in the temple because that's what was expected, and that was, you know, that's the most exciting thing, is for you to get married in the temple and then never, ever go back.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:07] Is there anything you want to share about your mission experience or just jumping to how you finished your mission in terms of your overall testimony? Anything you want to else say about your mission?

Tina Beard [00:29:20] I met some of my best friends on my mission. Some of the best girls that I know I served missions with, not as companions, but around each other. And so I finished on a high. You know, I finished feeling like I had done my duty. I'd served the Lord. You know, I had done what was required of me. I was a good and faithful servant, and I was ready for the next step in my life and the next milestone in Mormon living. Finding my eternal companion.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:54] It's like, box checked.

Tina Beard [00:29:56] Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] Was Zane. Was Zane. Were you hoping Zayn was waiting for you? And Zayn, were you waiting for her? We'll get to Zane's story, I guess, in a second.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] But, Tina, were you hoping Zane was waiting for you?

Tina Beard [00:30:09] No.

John Dehlin [00:30:10] Okay.

Tina Beard [00:30:12] When we.

Zane Beard [00:30:12] That's the first I've heard of that.

Tina Beard [00:30:14] No, no. Zayn and I were not dating when we left on our missions. However, we had decided that we would write to each other.

John Dehlin [00:30:26] Okay.

Zane Beard [00:30:26] And she was dating someone else when she went on a mission.

Tina Beard [00:30:30] Yeah, I. I had a boyfriend. We were writing, but Zane and I had decided to just be friends and support each other. And I did feel, though, which is bizarre to me now, one morning, I was doing my morning study, and I was reading my scriptures, and I felt this really strong impression that I would marry Zayn.

Zane Beard [00:30:54] Ooh, church's true.

Tina Beard [00:30:56] And. And I was like, what the heck? That is so weird because we weren't, you know, we didn't, we weren't romantically in love with each other or anything

Zane Beard [00:31:08] and we're riding as friends. She did send me a card saying that I was her Valentine's Day, though.

Tina Beard [00:31:14] And I sent that to about 10 other guys.

Zane Beard [00:31:16] Yeah, so she was, she was a hard player.

Tina Beard [00:31:19] Keeping my options open, planting a lot of seeds.

Zane Beard [00:31:24] She was, she was, she was, she was. Yeah, she was sewing.

Zane's Path to Joining the Church

John Dehlin [00:31:32] All right, let's, let's jump now back to Zane's story. Zayn, tell us how you ended up Mormon.

Zane Beard [00:31:39] Okay, well, and also what.

John Dehlin [00:31:41] Maybe if you want to share any background that you think made you ripe or I don't want to say vulnerable, but that made you a candidate for joining the church. Maybe.

Zane Beard [00:31:55] Yeah, I, I don't, I don't know if there was anything like, like that because I had had an amazing upbringing. Probably the best parents in the world. You could choose. You know, my parents, we had a got and still do really loving home relationship. Great examples. We lived in a place called Buchan which was like, um, we call it acreage, kind of semi rural and has a great lifestyle of riding push bikes to friends houses, doing campouts and fires and lots of fun and grew up as a non member. My parents were quite strict around, you know, drinking alcohol and that drugs and that sort of thing. Didn't stop me, Stopped me probably more than some. But yeah, we, I, I was going out to parties and doing the same usual things that non members in their late teens would, would be doing. Met a lot of people out at parties and started hanging out with them. And I remember being in the back seat of their car and drunk, you know, coming back from a party and they, they thought I was asleep. And they started talking about the, the church like they're, they're both either less active or going every now and again. And I remember piping up saying, you guys aren't Mormons. You still watch tv and you, you're not in a horse and carriage. You're driving a car. I thought Mormons were Amish people. You know, I had no idea. And they, they kind of stopped talking. I think that maybe they're embarrassed that I heard or. I don't know. But I became good friends with these guys and they, they invited me to some. They said, you've got to go to a, like a Mormon party. And I thought it'd be so funny, you know, I just thought it'd be interesting. People dressed in 1800 clothes and stuff like that, you know, and so I went to this party and it was fun, you know, people were having heaps of fun. They weren't drunk and they weren't, you know, sleazing around and there was no fights. And the area we grew up in was kind of like the school and everything was, you know, around that area was kind of quasi rough, you know, so there would be a lot of fights and drunkenness and gangs and stuff sometimes at parties. And so when I went to this Mormon party, I was like, wow, it's actually pretty cool, you know, had no idea about the church. Then I went to another one and they said, this time act like you're a Mormon, you know. So I was like, I don't know how to do that, but I will. And I had had a few drinks, I went to this party, I saw this good looking girl, went up and chatted to her and she was like, what, what are you in? And I said, I'm in Brisbane Parish because I grew up going to a Catholic school. I had no idea what, you know, ward or whatever. And so I said, brisbane Parish? She's like, oh, where's? She's like parish. She's like, do you mean steak? And I was like, yeah, it's in Brisbane Steak, it's the Brisbane Ward. And she's like, where is that? And I'm like, where do you live? And I lived in an apartment in the city with my family. And we talked about that and, and then I said, she's like, is it near the temple? And I said, yeah, my dad owns the temple. She's like, your dad owns the temple? I said, yeah, yeah, my dad owns a temple. And that's when she, I got busted, you know, like she knew that I had no idea what else.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] That wasn't Tina though.

Zane Beard [00:35:26] No, it wasn't, it wasn't Tina.

Tina Beard [00:35:29] But though the guys that he was hanging out with were my childhood friends.

Zane Beard [00:35:34] Yeah, that's right. So we actually went to primary school together too. We didn't know that, like Tina's a year older. We went to the same school and we're in the same area, but different circles of course, you know, and, and so I ended up going, you know. First time I met Tina, I'd gone surf. Like I was staying the night at Tina's house with her older brother and we're going for a surf the next day. And I saw Tina just walking out, you know. But I got closer through parties and stuff. I got to see Tina and I was like, man, this is this beautiful girl that was into, you know, Surfing, like me would go and we started going on the beach together as friends. And she was funny. And I, you know, women who, you know, like it. I don't know how to say it right, but I was attracted to her spirituality or her, her wholesomeness and her virtue, you know, like, it was beautiful. It was a lot different to the girls that I, you know, had been used to in that sense. And I, I'd been dating a lot of different girls that, you know, not at the same time, but I had dated girls and had girlfriends and stuff and we felt, you know, we fell for each other. I read a lot. I read some anti Mormon stuff at that time, you know, and was convinced that the church wasn't true. So. But I would come to things every now and again just to impress Tina, really, and she would, she was getting a lot of pressure, I know, you know, from. To break up with me. And we were, we dated, you know, probably, you know, a year in. We were keeping all the commandments while she, you know, in, in terms of our relationship. And I, I remember just, I think it was in a Sunday school, you know, I never stayed for Sunday school, but I was in a Sunday school. And they'll sharing the tree of life, I think it was, or something. And I remember feeling what I felt, you know, what I felt to be the spirit, you know, and I'm going, man, I, that, that story is really interesting. And I'd never, I got given a Book of Mormon, but I threw it under the bed, never read it. And so I remember going, I'm surprised, you know, Joseph Smith as a young kid wrote this story because it was fascinating. So I got home, got my Book of Mormon out, dusted it off and started reading, reading bits of it for the first time and just interested in it, not out of the church. And it made me get to the point where I went, hey, what about? Why don't I get the lessons in secrecy with no one knowing so I can understand what this church is about. I didn't think I was going to join. I wasn't sure, but I was open to learning because there was like a doubt in my mind that maybe it is true, you know, thinking it wasn't, but maybe. So I had the missionaries, I like put an online referral and these two missionaries came, one from Utah, one from Canada, and they came over and they started teaching me and they invited me to church and I just said yes. And I was so embarrassed. I was like, no, I can't believe I said that. But I went to church. They were really lovely at church and took me in. Tina had no idea. I was getting the lessons for quite a while. And they were getting me to read the Book of Mormon. And so I was reading the Book of Mormon and I started to believe, you know, and it wasn't a. I, you know, I don't know how to put my finger on it, but it was. I remember reading the Book of Mormon and then afterwards just feeling really good about it. Like, feeling like less and less convinced that someone had. Had made. That made this book up, you know, and wrote it. It felt like it came from God. I believed in God. My parents taught me about God. They taught me how to pray. I. I used to pray every now and again. Usually when I was in an athletics carnival and I needed to make this the next high jump or about to, like, do something, I would pray for help, you know, I was like one of those sort of believers. And I didn't have any, you know, like, amazing spiritual experience. I remember either then or just after I joined the church, I was laying in my bed and I had this piece of paper that I Scrooged up and I had this air convent that was like, on the wall. And I remember saying to myself, if I can scrutul this piece of paper up and I'll throw it in the air convent. It was really hard. It had to, like curve like 90 degrees, then slide up the air combat. I said, if this goes in, then the church is true, you know. So I threw it and it went in. I was like, ah, darn it. And I kept. I threw it and then I threw it out that way and it curved and went right up the air convent. And. And I was thinking to myself, I still don't believe. Like, and. And looking back, maybe the air convent was like sucking stuff in.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:46] I thought I was going to ask you.

Zane Beard [00:40:48] Yeah, yeah. It was silly, you know. And I remember praying. I said, God, if the church is true, like, I would say God, like, not Heavenly Father. I was like, I will be the Pope of mormonism. I'll be 100%. I said, if you just come down now, you and Jesus just come down now, just tell me. I won't tell anyone. That's it.

Tina Beard [00:41:06] But classic saying, negotiations.

Zane Beard [00:41:09] Yeah. I was negotiating with the Lord. He didn't come, but I. I believed it.

John Dehlin [00:41:14] I've never. I've never heard of anybody say they're going to be the Pope of Mormonism. That's amazing.

Zane Beard [00:41:19] Yep. I love that.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:23] If you, if you just want to visit me real Quick, you know, God and Jesus. Just between us. It'll just be between us.

Zane Beard [00:41:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:30] A little secret.

Zane Beard [00:41:31] A little secret. Yeah. So look, I. I love. I. I fell in love with the culture. I was in love with Tina. That had a big part of it. I believed. I believed more than I disbelieved it at that point. You know, I didn't know. My testimony is nowhere near where it was, say, a year ago, you know, but. But I. I got baptized. I told her just before my baptism, like the week before, the day before.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:56] No.

Zane Beard [00:41:57] Well, I can't remember how long, but she freaked out. She did not believe it. She's like, you know, you need to get the lessons, right? I was like, I've been getting the lessons. She's like, no, you haven't. And I said, call the missionaries. And she called the missionaries. They're like, yeah, yeah, he's gold. He's been getting the lessons and he's been going to church. And I remember we told her parents, and her dad was like, as long as you're doing it for the right reasons, you know, which was an obvious thing to say, you know, And I got baptized. And. Yeah, I don't know how far along you want on the story, but Margi

John Dehlin [00:42:31] has a quick question for you.

Zane Beard [00:42:32] Sure.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:33] So about what age were you when you started taking the discussions?

Zane Beard [00:42:39] 19.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:40] So you were 19. And then I'm curious, did your family. Did your parents have any idea that you were taking the discussions and also their feelings around your baptism, if they had any?

Zane Beard [00:42:56] Yeah, they were awesome. Yeah, they knew I was getting the lessons because we'd have it on the balcony of the apartment and they. They would be there sometimes, you know, and they knew. They knew I was getting the lessons. They knew I was dating a member of the church. They knew we broke up over the church quite a lot. I actually made Tina put her hand on the Bible and promise and swear that she would never break up with me because of the church ever again. So she did that. I think that, like, softened my heart. I think she was crossing her fingers and toes, though, while she was doing it, but it. It kind of stuck in my heart. But, yeah, I was. I was 19. And my parents were pretty cool with it, like, they. They said they were.

Tina Beard [00:43:38] But, yeah, I'll just say Zayn's mom recently said to me, you know, when Zayn was, you know, learning about the Mormon Church and decided that he wanted to join the church, I wasn't excited about it. I wasn't happy about it. But then I thought you know what, there's a lot of more worse things that a 19 year old guy could be doing than joining a church. So yeah, it's, it's, it's all right. They were good.

Zane Beard [00:44:02] They, they didn't fully understand what, what we believed. I think I like looking back could have done better at helping them understand it. They, you know, they thought Mormons had multiple wives and stuff. And I talked through, through that sort of thing and only, only in celestial kingdom. Right. And, but we, yeah, I, I, I, the, the hard thing for them was me going on a mission. So we, I joined the church. We, Tina, Tina after like, like when you join the church and you're dating and you're a ysa, people started talking straight away about marriage. You know, like that was all me going on a mission and that freaked me out because it was like, whoa. Both of them are really hectic things to think about right now. But I, I, I think that pressure got to us in a way and Tina decided to go live in Italy and Switzerland and we broke up over that time. And

John Dehlin [00:45:02] can I ask really quick, like there, you know, we had world cult expert Stephen Hasson on Mormon stories last week and he talked about how he was raised a secular Jew. He's raised Jewish but kind of non literal believing and how he was in college in some Mooney, it's a cult here in the United States. So Mooney young women at his college flirted with him and that's how he got kind of brought in in Mormonism. I think I've heard it referred to as flirt to convert. I, I, I don't know if that's a thing. I didn't really deal with that growing up, I guess because I was a member. But if you're, if you're looking back, do you even have, would you even have a way to kind of parse between you converted for, you know, you just flat out converted for Tina or you really felt like you had gained your own testimony or some type of combination?

Zane Beard [00:45:59] Yeah, I think in that, oh look, flirt to convert is, is real. You know, I don't think she was flirting to convert me looking back. I don't, I know I wouldn't have joined the church without Tina because I just wouldn't have been interested in it enough to, you know, if someone knocked on my door, I wouldn't have been interested. You know, I wasn't interested in religion and that sort of thing.

John Dehlin [00:46:19] Not just that, but you, you say you had kind of decided it wasn't true, right?

Zane Beard [00:46:24] I, I, yeah, I even, I even disbelieved it, you know, and, and thought it was made, made up.

Tina Beard [00:46:30] And you'd even said stuff to me when we were dating. He'd said things about how it's not true and how he would never join the church.

Zane Beard [00:46:38] Yeah, Yeah. I would say that if Tina broke up with me the week before my baptism, I would have probably put it on hold. And I don't think, I don't know if I would have joined. I didn't join for her because I did believe. But that, that sort of belief, nurturing of belief wouldn't have happened without her. And, and, and, and funnily enough, we separated after I joined the church and she was in Italy having the time of her life, leaving me back here. And, and so I went to a fireside. Why I say fireside? And I didn't know anyone and all of, all the people I knew were all her friends. And so that was a bit weird. They were like on Team Tina, you know. And so I felt really lonely and I had, I had heaps of non member mates and I had a great like, life, non member life. And I remember going home and praying and saying, hey, hey, it's been, it's been a nice ride, Heavenly Father, and I appreciate it, but I'm going to leave the church. And, and I remember for the first time ever hearing the voice of God to me say, it's gonna be okay. Everything will be okay. And I freaked me out. I'd never heard a voice. Now in my mind, I don't know if that was just me or whatever, but, but it, like maybe he was saying it's okay to leave, but he would say, but it was, that's what I felt. And it was like, wow, church is true. I'm gonna stay. And so I started going out and making friends and I started for the first time, like honestly praying every day, reading my scriptures every day writing, writing something that I learned from the scriptures. Every day listening to EFY music, you know, in my car instead of the gangster 2000s rap or rock or whatever I was listening to. And I just started really, you know, believing. And I had some RM mates and we would watch church movies on Sundays. I watched the Best two Years and Other side of Heaven and I was like, man, like everyone was pushing me to go and I said I wouldn't and I hated that pressure. But then I started feeling myself, I want to go on a mission and started, you know, dating other girls other than Tina. And, but, but genuinely believing, genuinely wanting to go Put my papers in and when. Yeah, got. Got called. Got called to Perth. So, yeah, by that point, leaving on a mission, I was like, yeah. Then I was single and independently tbm, you know, true believing woman at that point. So I hand the story back there. John, I don't know if you want me to talk more further about my mission or endowment.

Zane's Mission and Return Home

John Dehlin [00:49:44] Yeah, well, it just. It sounds like you really gained your own testimony eventually, which.

Zane Beard [00:49:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:49] Which is important because people will always want to say whenever somebody loses their faith, they want to just oftentimes believing Mormons want to discredit it.

Zane Beard [00:49:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:58] And say something like, well, he never really had a testimony or he just joined for her. Which wouldn't explain the lack of inspiration at calling you as bishop eventually. But if we just are going to believe your story.

Zane Beard [00:50:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] Saying that you and Tina broke up and you gained your own authentic testimony.

Zane Beard [00:50:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I was believing until up when I got baptized. But I. I really left on my mission convinced the church was true, you know, and. And so went to mtc. Had amazing experiences in mtc, you know, really loved that camaraderie. You know, I never. Australians don't talk about religion. You know, you don't talk about it even. Even. Like, sometimes even amongst guys in the church, you go out, you don't often talk about. So being an MTC and having people talk about, you know, when. More just having those chats, it was really powerful for me, you know, and I had felt the spirit a number of times at mtc. My endowment was all fine apart from the fact that they, you know, I had no temple prep experience. They told me that when you get to the sister room, you pray. So when I got to the sister room, I got down on my knees in front of everyone and started praying. And quickly, you know, the. The temple matrix, you know, the. The people in the temple. I don't know if it's just me, but they feel like they're eagle eyes when you're doing something that you shouldn't be doing. You know, they swooped in and they're like, no, no, no, you don't do that here. You know, I was freaked out a little bit by the endowment, but I believe that. I remember going like cinema. I was like, man, that was pretty weird. But I feel the spirit. So I'm just gonna see that it's a problem with me, not with the church. I just don't understand it enough yet. So. But I went on my mission, went to Perth. Hated it, like straight away, I wanted to go home because it was exhausting. You know, it was really hot, 30 plus degrees. It was December, so middle of our summer in Australia is quite hot. And I, I just remember thinking like sitting in the shower one morning on a Saturday, like just standing in the shower going, oh, I can't believe my friends actually completed this for two years. It wasn't a testimony problem, it was a hard work thing. And I felt like I was gaslit a bit, you know, like people come, come home from their missions and say how amazing it was and I came out and it was just like, hey, this isn't like the best two years. All those, you know, like even though they had some hard experiences, just, it was tough. And I remember praying every night for a greater witness or you know, something to help me and never came. But over the course of that, you know, by six months I was okay. I think by a year I started to enjoy it. By the end of my mission I really, really was sort of enjoying it, ready to come home. But definitely then I had, I met, I, I loved my mission. I, I look back and there was lots of great spiritual experiences. I, it helped me become a much better worker, you know, I worked really hard. I'm, I'm even where I am now with my faith. I was really proud of the way I, I served my mission. I was really obedient, you know, and I tried hard. Probably, you know, things I'd go back and do differently, you know. But I, I tried. I had a lot of opportunities to lead and serve and help and see people come under Christ. And so it kind of turned me from a, I guess, you know, a fresh convert with not a lot of experience to yeah, like molded me into someone who wanted to be a strong priesthood holden man for the rest of my life, you know. And, and it, I, I came, I came back a totally, a totally different person in some bad ways as well, you know. Like I think I came back. I don't know you're nodding about that, but I think, I think she's having a go. But I think I came back. Not a zealot, but I came back zealous.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:15] Very.

Zane Beard [00:54:15] And I came back, you know, I wish I was better at staying close to my non member friends. You know, I felt like looking back, I felt like I dropped them for the church in a way. Like I felt like I had to just because they would drink, we'd go over, go to their parties and stuff and there'd be alcohol. So I just started, stopped doing that and naturally lost a lot of those friendships My best friend still is my school friend you know and non member and we see each other a lot but you know I, I, I, I do, I, I do regret that you know but I came home. We started, we were riding through our missions and we, we came back and yeah I had some wild experiences on my mission stopped A man had to stop someone from stabbing his ex partner to death and was on the news and was in the ensign and on, on foot YouTube and stuff like that and, and that was crazy. Someone would come and twist our number plate at night. They would just come and twist it and bend it and so I came out one night and I caught them. I was like ah gotcha. And they came up and punched me in the nose. Fractured my nose and and like I, I grabbed him on the ground because I got in lots of fights when I was a kid and I was going to beat him up and I had him on the ground and I saw him tearing up in fear and I was like I can't do that. And I was like just go away. Don't ever come back. And he's like yes. And then he got up and he's like oh you want to go? And he threw another punch at me. You know had, had had some crazy experiences. Had a gun pulled out of me or driving past like it was, it was wild.

Tina Beard [00:55:55] But you have to know that Zane is a magnet for crazy experience experiences. Like just the weirdest stuff only happens to Zane.

Zane Beard [00:56:05] Telling the truth. I double I, I double testify but yeah it was, it was cool. I I, I liked it. I loved my mission president. He's the Area 70 here. Elder Mora, Karl Mora was a great mission president and and learned a lot from him and came home. Yeah zealous and we started date like we, we went to the temple for our first date. Talk about the wrong place to take. I never knew I thought that was like the sweet thing come home, take her to the temple on a date. You know now I know that's like terrible. I only just realized that now she shares experience.

John Dehlin [00:56:47] I knew well it's not terrible for orthodox believing Mormons that's like an ideal dream date for many.

Tina Beard [00:56:53] Yeah yeah yeah. To return missionaries. Why wouldn't you?

Zane Beard [00:56:56] Yeah yeah. And so we started dating again. Got engaged pretty quickly.

John Dehlin [00:57:03] How soon

Zane Beard [00:57:06] yeah how soon were you

John Dehlin [00:57:07] engaged from returning home?

Zane Beard [00:57:09] Pretty we we're very embarrassed to say that we're engaged within two weeks of me coming home from my mission. Yep. Be beat that byu. We weren't even at BYU and we beat that.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:23] You Know that letter writing?

Zane Beard [00:57:26] Oh, yeah, we were letter writing. Yeah. Must have been. Must have been the letters. And plus, we knew each other so well.

Tina Beard [00:57:33] Yeah.

Zane Beard [00:57:34] And I think some of our negatives were not as negative anymore. Like, we grew up a bit.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:41] A lot.

Tina Beard [00:57:41] We both grew up.

Zane Beard [00:57:42] We both grew up a lot.

Tina Beard [00:57:47] Approval now because we were both returned missionaries. So it was like,

Zane Beard [00:57:52] you can marry him now. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:54] So you were engaged within two weeks and married in how long?

Tina Beard [00:57:59] Three months.

Zane Beard [00:58:02] Came home November, married in February. Yeah, three or four months.

John Dehlin [00:58:05] Wow.

Zane Beard [00:58:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:07] Good for you.

Zane Beard [00:58:10] Yeah. Yeah, it was quick. Don't know if we'd do it differently, but, yeah, we're. We're in love. And I always, always felt like, hey, if you know what's right, go for it. And so we went for it. I was poor. I was poor as heck. She. She bought out. She bought our engagement ring, and we lived in a little apartment, and I was studying my master's degree then, and we. We had a. We had a awesome little life, but church made things really challenging for us as well in those first years of marriage. And, you know, so it was. It was. Yeah, that's. That. That's sort of the whirlwind, my church experience there.

Marriage, Family, and Early Married Life

John Dehlin [00:59:00] So you're. I guess your parents had to sit outside the temple, Hussein, when you got married.

Zane Beard [00:59:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:06] And your family.

Zane Beard [00:59:07] We wouldn't. They didn't even do the civil. Allow you to do the civil weddings back then. That. That really does hurt me, you know,

Tina Beard [00:59:17] I kind of haunts us today.

Zane Beard [00:59:18] Yeah, I feel that. I feel. I feel that. I feel for them. I. I just felt like, hey, we're getting married in the temple. That's what we got to do. I wish they were there, you know, I really did wish they were there. It didn't make me, like, sadly, didn't make me question why that would be the case, you know? But again, they copped it on the chin. They were very upset when I decided to go on a mission because they were worried about, you know, like, not speaking to me for two years only on Mother's Day and Christmas, and that really hurt them and took them a long time to come around to that. And then. They're beautiful. They used to write to me every week. Dad would send me money and write these beautiful letters, handwritten. Everyone loves getting handwritten mail on their mission. Right. And he would write every week. I think everyone. All the other mission missionaries were envious. But, yeah, came home, got married quickly, and then they. They. Yeah, they couldn't come. I felt they didn't Complain about it. They were there. They'll supportive. Um, and um, yeah, beautiful, to be honest. Beautiful that they would be like that. But it must have broken their heart.

Tina Beard [01:00:27] And since, since then, it's really weighed on me that they missed out. And so I have in recent years apologized to them, you know, so many times. Just said, I'm just so sorry that we did that to you and that you missed out on that. And they're so gracious.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:49] They.

Tina Beard [01:00:50] We had a reception after the wedding at. In my family garden. And you know, Zane's mum, Donna was like, yeah, it's fine, Tina. We were there for the reception. That was important for us. You know, we were there for that. And that was what, you know, that was the wedding for us.

John Dehlin [01:01:09] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of your family, because Margi. Margi's a convert. Her parents were converts to the church. So I think a lot of Margi's family had to sit outside the temple too.

Zane Beard [01:01:21] We got married.

John Dehlin [01:01:22] Yeah. So solidarity with you guys on that.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:27] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] When you got married, can you describe, like, there's an unwritten contract when a Mormon couple gets married in the temple? It's sort of like this is the plan. This, this will be the plan for life. And these are the milestones we're going to hit and these are the roles we're each going to play. Do you mind articulating the roles and, and the milestones that you either explicitly or just assumed, either explicitly agreed to or assumed would. Would be the true or the case for you? You can take.

Zane Beard [01:02:06] Dean is very, very gracious and tapping me to say that, which I think you should say it because it actually impacted her a lot more. And, and, and like I'm gonna sit here and cringe and be embarrassed while Tina talks and then I'll get my rider reply. Okay.

Tina Beard [01:02:24] Using your authority right now.

Zane Beard [01:02:25] Yeah. Hey, that's.

Tina Beard [01:02:28] Well, yeah, well, it was. I guess we talked about it though. We did talk about it because in my mind, being a stay at home mom was the ultimate plan of happiness for us. And so we were both working until we fell pregnant with Charlotte, our first child. And I worked right up until I had Charlie. And from then on it was, I'm a stay at home mom. But so I wasn't very fulfilled by being a stay at home mom. But Zane would just continue to work and serve in his callings. And that was really, really hard because my life changed significantly. Everything that I did was gone. And he could still come and go as he pleased and fulfill his duties and callings and do his degree and go to work. And I was stuck at home keeping this human alive. And I didn't understand why that was so hard and why it was so unfulfilling. Because the narrative that I'd been told was that it's wonderful and that's where all your happiness will be. So that was kind of like our unwritten rules that I would be the stay at home mom, he would be the breadwinner.

Zane Beard [01:03:51] Yeah. I think, I think looking back, it manifested in a couple of ways where one I took literally, you know, that Tina harkens unto me as I hearken unto the Lord.

John Dehlin [01:04:06] You know, that was for those who aren't Mormon. That would have been the temple covenant. Yeah, that, that. Zane, you would have covenanted to obey Heavenly Father in your temple endowment ceremony instead of hearkening to obey God. Instead of covenanting to obey God, Tina would have covenanted to hearken unto you as you obey God.

Zane Beard [01:04:31] Yeah. Is that right?

John Dehlin [01:04:32] Did I get that right?

Zane Beard [01:04:33] That's exactly right. And, and like, I'm embarrassed about it. I was never like unrighteous dominion sort of thing, but I always felt like when we had a big decision, like she wanted to move back to where her family were and she would, she would really feel strongly about it and I'll be like, okay, yeah, I'll, I'll consider that and take it to the Lord, you know, and I'm embarrassed by that. I'm sorry, honey. You know, like, that's, that's, that's how I felt at that time was my responsibility. And at that time I was serving as the elder scoring president and I was reactivating people and I was tunnel visioned, you know, like, hey, I've been called by the Lord for this holy work, you know, and I wasn't one of those, you know, I've never been like a Molly Peter priesthood type of guy, but I was.

Tina Beard [01:05:17] What does that look like?

Zane Beard [01:05:18] I don't know. But I was a zealous, zealous, very zealous. I believed and I was hardworking. And so I felt like it wasn't my time yet. I got a lot of work here to do. And so we didn't, you know, and, and there'll be times where like I went and visited this less active family of eight who got, nearly got in a fight with the last elders corn president. And I just felt like I should go and visit them. And I was scared because I was like, oh man, this Polynesian guy is gonna like beat me up. And I went there fasting that they wouldn't. And, and they were on the ground crying because they had no food, because they had spent all their money and they were desperate and thinking they're gonna die, you know, and, and I went and got them like 200 bucks worth of food. And, and then they said they're going to come to church that weekend. And I organized like another. We call, you know, the Mormon minivans over here, the Toyota Taragos. And we had, we. I had another member with pick all this family of eight. We took him to church. But that same day I, like, I was supposed to pick up Tina and I went and she wasn't ready yet, so I just drove off, you know, taking these kids, taking, taking this family to church, thinking, I don't know what I was thinking, that she wasn't going to go that day or whatever, but she was then left out waiting for me, couldn't get back into the house. And it caused tension, you know, because I was so focused on that and thinking her job was at home and keeping that. And my job was serving and providing. And, and, and that caused, I think, I think that made it harder. And, and that was kind of always modus operande was a little bit, it got better over time because I realized I needed to do more around the home and, and, and, and not just, yeah, you like, like do more of that. And, and I don't think the church taught me otherwise. I think it was. I think I just had to learn that as a husband, even if I was in or out of the church, just to serve your wife more. But the church complicated it by the fact of, you know, you, you go and you serve and do your priesthood responsibilities and your wife looks after everything at home. And, and so that was, that was probably the hard dynamic. And then it really came to a head as serving as a bishop, you know, and that, that's where it's like at its most extreme case, you know.

Zane Is Called as Bishop

John Dehlin [01:07:42] How many years, how many years into your marriage was it before you were called as a, as a bishop? Zayn, how many years?

Zane Beard [01:07:50] I got called as a bishop at 34. And we got married at. When I was 23. So about 11 years in. Yeah, I would say. And I've been. Yeah, seven. For three years now. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:06] So. So, Tina, circling back, you. You've had four. Four children, is that right?

Tina Beard [01:08:13] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [01:08:14] So what were those 11 years like for you having four children? Not, not two, not three, not one, but four for. And then trying to persist in that role as, as a stay at Home Mormon mom.

Tina Beard [01:08:33] So I got a lot of postnatal depression every time I'd have. Have a child. But I guess the culture is that you just have children, you know, and we wanted four children, so it was like, let's just get it done. Let's have these four kids. And so the age difference, our eldest turns 13 this year, and our youngest turns 8 this year. So it was just bam, bam, bam. I was always pregnant, always breastfeeding, always morning sickness. Yeah, it was tough. And, you know, you don't get a lot of sleep. And the. The era of your life at that time is Zayn's working to provide, and you'd finished your degree, you're working for your dad. And then we moved into state, so then I didn't have any family support. And I think above all, it was like church callings were really. They take. They take precedence. And so it was really challenging for me to be able to just stay levelheaded because I'm sleep deprived. I'm. I feel unfulfilled, and these people need me. You know, these four children need me, and I'm not really doing anything for myself. And. And Zayn is working, traveling quite often for work, and I'm on my own a lot. And I guess my family and my church network were my really only. Only support at the time. And when we were interstate, we had a couple of really close friends, and they were my. They were my lifesavers. They kept me sane. And I don't think in that time I had much room to think about anything else other than just surviving.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:43] What is that? Did you say interstate? I'm. I want to make sure I understand.

Tina Beard [01:10:49] Yeah, that's right. So we moved from Queensland to New South Wales.

John Dehlin [01:10:53] Oh, okay.

Tina Beard [01:10:55] So that's, you know, another state in Australia.

John Dehlin [01:10:59] Okay. And Margi, were you going to react to.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:01] Oh, I was just relating. I just, yeah, really relate to, you know, the roles being so defined and then the. The isolation and the disconnect that's created as you are living those.

Tina Beard [01:11:18] Those roles.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:19] And then also, you know, oftentimes, oh, the. What emerges when you have a partner where their life. And I think there are. There are their own challenges with breadwinning, the breadwinning role. But, like, that world being so open, so full. As you were talking, Zane, like, there's some fulfillment for you as you're out doing. And then, you know, for Tina in your role, this feeling of, like, the world closing in, like, kind of smaller and feeling. And so what happens when you're looking at A partner, you know, that comparison. And, you know, so just for you.

Tina Beard [01:12:06] Thank you. I appreciate that. And Zayn is a very successful person. You know, he. He thrives. He gets praise for the work that he does, and it's a credit to him and his dedication to his work and his callings and things like that. So as he's getting praise and promotion after promotion and I'm drowning over here, you know, and not feeling like I can ask for help, because the narrative is that you should be happy, right? You should be. You've got kids, you've got a husband, you've been married in the temple, you're serving you, you should be happy. And. And the other thing, I don't know that if it's a cultural thing here or in the church, I don't know where it fits. But, like, daycare and sent. And me going back to work was really taboo. I think it's more of a church thing than it is an. A Australia thing, because as time has progressed, more women have gone back to work and things like that, and a lot of children are in daycare more. And so that wasn't even an option, you know, for me to go to work because then there would be this guilt, more guilt around somebody else raising my child, essentially, and me missing out on all these important milestones. And so, yeah, it. It was. My world was really coming in, like you say.

Zane Beard [01:13:40] I'd also say it's kind of like sometimes a bit of toxic perfectionism where, you know, people at church aren't vulnerable enough and honest enough. And so when you see other wives, you know, wives of husbands, like, not complaining or it's really that, you know, they get up and the husband say, she never complained once. And all this stuff, you just go. And then your wife's struggling, and you're like, oh, what's wrong with her? When really they're normal. It's the people that aren't struggling. That's weird, you know, and.

Tina Beard [01:14:12] Or just not verbalizing it.

Zane Beard [01:14:14] Yeah, yeah, People. People just aren't. There's this culture that you shouldn't say you're having a hard time when your husband's serving, or. So I had this, like, narrative sometimes. Like, I wonder, you know, she must be struggling with her faith, you know, you know, it's embarrassing to think about, but you, You, You. You never really grasp how difficult it is for the partner. I've learned that over time. I've had to learn it as a bishop. And to be honest, the church is getting a lot better in that sense. Like right now, when our stake presidency was called, they would say, you know, you, Your family's number one priority. You've gotta, you can cancel your meetings, spend time with your family, you know, don't do meetings on Sundays. Spend it with your family, like all those sorts of things which help now. It hasn't fixed everything, but I wish it was more like that a long, A long time ago, you know, and so we've had to, we've had to have some hard knocks and lessons along the way where I, I struggle to say no to help people. So when someone's in need, I go out. And when you're a bishop, that is a bad combination for family life sometimes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:34] So, okay, so you said it was 11 years before you were called as bishop, is that right, Zane?

Zane Beard [01:15:42] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:43] And how did your testimonies progress, each of you in parallel during those 11 years leading up to Zane's call as bishop? Maybe Tina and Zane or Zane and Tina, whichever order.

Tina Beard [01:15:58] Mine didn't progress at all. I, I was so tired. And I remember having conversations with Zane and he'd say, well, you know, you don't really read your scriptures. You know, I'm like, I don't, I don't have time to read my scriptures. You know, I'm running around after these kids and when I get a quiet moment to myself, the last thing I want to read is the Book of Mormon that I. Is gibberish, really, a lot of the time. And I just, you know, like, if I have free time, I just want to do something that I like, you know, that I enjoy. And so, yeah, my testimony didn't really progress at all. And I remember being asked to have callings and things like that. And I remember just saying to one of the bishopric members, I was like, I have postnatal depression. I'm not taking on anything else. And he was kind of like, oh, okay. Like, it was this really weird thing for him and he just didn't really get it. And so I think from there I kind of got labeled a little bit. She can't cope. Don't give her anything. She can't cope.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:09] Yeah, that hurts a bit. Yeah, I have to say.

Tina Beard [01:17:13] Yeah. You know, like, and, and I think a lot of women can't cope. I just wasn't happy to be quiet about it.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:23] Exactly, exactly. And I do think too, as we, as we're talking about kind of women and the expectation of women, and you were mentioning Zayn, this kind of perfectionism and what you experience oftentimes in the ward culture, where people don't, you know, aren't being as forthright or honest or about their experiences. And I think a lot of that, it's, it's perfectionism. It's also the expectation that it'd be easy for women like that the righteousness and you, you know, is, is sort of like not only are you doing all the things and you, but also. And happy, by the way, and made happy doing it, but that it's also very easy for you to do it. And so, yeah, that, that I recognize that Tina and I also like it really, you know, I'm feeling it for you that where it turns, swings back on you where it's like, what's wrong with you? As opposed to like, this is really hard. And what we're asking of you is actually a lot for humans.

Tina Beard [01:18:26] Yeah, yeah. And can you make sure you do your visiting teaching as well?

Margi Dehlin [01:18:30] Right, right.

Zane Beard [01:18:33] Yeah, that's it. Well, look, for me, I think I, I would. I was reading my scriptures every day, praying morning and night, home teaching, ministering, serving, having experiences, you know, seeing, seeing blessings. Like we, you know, promotions at work or pay rises was like, hey, we're living the Gospel and the Lord's taking care of us. You know, very simplistic view of, of course. But I, you know, had a lot of opportunities to serve. And through that, you know, you go out and I remember visiting, praying, you know, about something to see someone as a Oswald mission leader when pray out to go to visit someone and not knowing why they're fully active and then them crying and going through a divorce and you didn't know. And then blessed give having blessings and feeling the spirit and comforting them. And you know, you walk out and you're like, man, I must. I've been an instrument in the Lord's hands, you know, and, and you have a lot of those experiences that are real, you know, but not necessarily. Like, for me, it was a testimony at that time that of the power of the priesthood and the church, you know, of the power to, you know, to receive revelation, act on it and go and help people. And I, I, I, I didn't say this, but as an elder scoring president, I visited someone and they told me about a faith crisis that had. But they were reading Rough Stone Rolling and that it was a great book and I loved church leader biographies. I had, I've still got probably the biographies of most prophets and a bunch of apostles. And I would, I got Rough Stone Rolling just so interested in it. And it shook me to the core, you know, as a tbm. I just, I just, it was polyandry that really shook me. And him running for president, I thought that was weird, but there was a couple of things in there like it really shook me, but I pushed it down. I didn't tell Tina, I didn't tell anyone. And I just pushed it down and locked it away and put it in a key. Put the key in and tried not to think about it and just focus on the spiritual, you know, the doubt, my doubts I've had having these experiences and then I slowly forgot about it, but knew subconsciously that it was there. But, but my testimony went from strength to strength, you know, and, and I was, I knew was really hard for my wife and I felt like it was a problem with her faith. But over time more realizing, well, and we're talking up until Bishop, I also, you know, was we, it was really hard, you know. And so yeah, my testimony developed, had, and, and, and living the gospel, enjoyed it, seen the hand of the Lord in my life and others and, and so we would pray about things. Big, big decisions together. We would receive revelation together, where to move, where to live, what jobs to take. We would have family home evenings, we screen scriptures, we'd read all the kids, children scripture books, you know, read through probably all of those. And yeah, in that sense we're pretty, pretty normal.

John Dehlin [01:22:13] If I, if I can just. Thanks for sharing that Zayn and Tina and if I can just connect with, with you Tina, a bit and, and Zayn briefly. I just, it, it took me, you know, when I, it took me about 10 years to realize how fundamentally unfair kind of the marital, the, the roles, the gender roles and the family structure within Mormonism are just so fundamentally unfair. When I, when I married Margi, you know, she had, she was, did great at byu, but what was super impressive about her was just she was a cross country athlete, you know, in a top five national program, which meant she could run a six minute mile for five or six miles straight and did just really intense training, kind of a national level athlete. So I just, I thought I'm marrying someone with character. I'm marrying someone who could do something really hard, you know, and she had dreams, you know, she wanted, she would tell me I want to get my masters and teach literature and I love literature and I want to teach. And you know, in my mind I'm like, oh that's sweet, you know, but in my mind I'm like, that's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is we're going to have kids. You're going to stay home with the kids, and I'm going to go build a successful career, which is what I did. And this is. This interview isn't about me, but I'm just connecting. I went to Bain, I went to Arthur Anderson, I went to Microsoft. And there was this. And Margi would just call me hysterical sometimes, and I'd be in the middle of meetings, and it's like, the kids this or the kids that. And at first I was just like, why can't you just deal? Like, I've got the hard stuff. Why can't you just figure it out, you know? And over several years, I came to realize how not just how difficult it is to sit home with one or two or three or four kids who are young all day long, but to have sacrificed, to have been something, to have achieved things, and then to just, like, lose all that, and you're like, wiping snotty noses and cleaning up poop and changing diapers all day long for like 15, you know, 10 years, right? And it. It culminate. I've told this story before. It culminated for me. I'm like, on it. I'll just say I was on a trip at Microsoft. I'm like, Malaysia. Then, you know, Singapore, then, you know, Beijing and Hong Kong. And I'm, you know, presenting on stage for CEOs, and I'm. I've met Bill Gates and I'm touring with the, you know, head of worldwide sales. All of these opportunities, all of these accolades, and I call home. And Margi's like, oh, my gosh, you know, kid number two just ate the poop of kid number one. You know what I mean? And I, you know, I just realized, like, they have the harder job by far, and that's not just a platitude, but it's not hard to become successful and to get paid well and to have tour the world and have amazing experiences. What's hard is to give up everything and to just sit home with kids two to three to four young kids for 10 years straight. That's the most brutal, grueling thing. And women aren't warned. They don't have informed consent. They didn't really it because they just have to do it, because that's what you do. And I guess I wanted to just say that, Tina, to say. Well, to see if I'm at all reflecting kind of what your experience was.

Tina Beard [01:25:57] Yeah, yeah. You actually make me a bit emotional. I mean, I was not a national athlete by any stretch, but I completely relate to that it is, it is hard. And you as males in your role, you're constantly getting praise. You're constantly, your life is exciting, you know, sure, it's mundane because you're going to work every day, but you have exciting things. You're traveling, you're doing all these great things and people are telling you we're doing great things.

John Dehlin [01:26:33] Sure.

Tina Beard [01:26:34] Being a stay at home mom, it's great in the long run. You know, your kids will be grateful that you spend that time, but no one is there praising you. You, you're picking up poop, you know, you're literally in the trench.

John Dehlin [01:26:59] Did you say anything and. Yeah, and no mom wants to say I got a bum deal. Because there's kids and you don't want to make them feel bad or make them feel guilty or act like you don't appreciate them. So, like the injustice sort of gets papered over, I think.

Zane Beard [01:27:20] Yeah. And, you know, I remember listening to quote from Ezra Tough Benson that any man, any woman that works a man kind of loses his manliness when that happens, you know, and you wanna. He wasn't my prophet, obviously, but you feel like that's the church's position. And it was for so long. It's only really changing a little bit now. And so you feel like you're doing God's will, but really it's not, you know, like Tina's now started a business and it's successful and it's exciting and she's growing it. And I see all these amazing talents of hers that come out that I never imagined. And man, I wish we'd just done that from the start, you know, like, we could have had the kids, we could have had career and we could have been both fulfilled. We could have both been happier, you know, but we were trying to live the gospel to the way that we had been taught it and we were taught it wrong in that sense, I think. Yeah.

Tina Beard [01:28:27] But I think like you say, John, it is unspoken. It's this unspoken narrative, but there's this huge expectation around this unspoken narrative.

Zane Beard [01:28:39] Yeah. And, and a silencing of. You can't say anything.

Tina Beard [01:28:44] Yeah.

Zane Beard [01:28:45] And you know, even to the point now when, you know, some people know that you have struggled and they don't care, like enough, you know.

Tina Beard [01:28:56] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Zane Beard [01:28:57] It's, it's. You should be, you know, you should be seen but not heard. Like, you just. You don't.

Tina Beard [01:29:05] I, I should be okay with Zayn going out and helping somebody with a porn addiction over helping my ASD child who's having a Meltdown.

Zane Beard [01:29:15] Yeah.

Tina Beard [01:29:16] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:18] Tina, when you mentioned you were kind of getting emotional, do you want to put words, whether it's anger or sadness or regret, do you want to put words to the emotion that you're feeling? I know it's hard.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:34] I think.

Tina Beard [01:29:35] I think when you were talking about Maggie and her passions

John Dehlin [01:29:42] and

Margi Dehlin [01:29:46] I guess,

Tina Beard [01:29:47] you know, like just the sacrifice of her goals and dreams. Sorry, I didn't want to get emotional. I just feel that. I feel that there's this huge expectation on women that they sacrifice their talents and their dreams

Margi Dehlin [01:30:13] and

Tina Beard [01:30:16] their goals in life to be somebody, to be something greater than the gatekeeper of the house, the cleaner, the cook, the taxi driver. And it's not valid. It's a nice idea.

Zane Beard [01:30:38] I think it's also, like, what I've found, and I don't know if this is just me, but it's disconnecting for the father, too, because.

Tina Beard [01:30:45] Absolutely.

Zane Beard [01:30:46] You kind of feel like the woman's doing the primary responsibility of nurturing, you know, like, family proclamation, and we're out serving and working hard and making money and, you know, serving other people. The wife's got the kids, and I can feel the kids kind of leaning towards the wife, you know, more and. And much having a much stronger relationship. And that hurts. You know, it hurts that I haven't been there enough for them emotionally. And I think it's. It's. It's. It's robbing the. The. The father as well of these. Some of these. Not just responsibilities, but sweet experiences, you know, to. To do that because of. Because of sort of that. And. And I. I know I'm not. I don't know if that's by design. You know, I'm not saying the churches designed it this way, but in practice for us, that's. That's was reality, unfortunately.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:51] Yeah. Such a good point. I feel a really, really good point. Loss on. Definitely loss for both in the room.

John Dehlin [01:32:00] Yeah.

Zane Beard [01:32:02] We're out last night with my friend who's. He's not a member of the church. It's his partner's birthday. They're planning on having a baby. And she's. She's like, I. She's like, I know that I don't. Like, I don't want to be at home. I want to be at work. And he really wants to be at home looking after the kid. So he's going to do that and she's going to work. I'm so proud of them, so happy for them. And I was envious, too, because I was like, man, he's going to have sweet experiences raising that kid and he'll go back to work as well at some point. But they freely. They're not held up by some cultural thing. They just make that decision.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:41] Yeah.

Zane Beard [01:32:41] What's best for them.

Tina Beard [01:32:43] She's an interior designer. She's super creative. Loves her job, loves the fast pace, the pressure, loves all of it, and knows that being at home is not going to serve her.

Zane Beard [01:32:55] Yeah.

Tina Beard [01:32:56] And I hear women so often talk about how, oh, I could never be a stay at home mom. And, you know, they are kind of saying, like, you're a stay at home mom. How did you do that kind of thing? Almost it, like you kind of chose that and that was your choice because you can handle it. And I just don't know that that's the narrative for so many women. We don't necessarily handle it. We just do it because we think that's what's expected.

John Dehlin [01:33:35] Is it. How, how fair is it to say you chose it? You know what I mean?

Margi Dehlin [01:33:40] I know there's that too. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:43] What would you say, Tina?

Tina Beard [01:33:45] I guess. I guess I did choose it, but I think it was under false pretenses that it was gonna bring me happiness and joy and fulfillment, and there was no education around it. There was no, there was no one saying, hey, this is going to be really, really difficult, and you might get postnatal depression or you might feel really unfulfilled and want to do something for yourself. And that's okay. There was never any of that kind of narrative anywhere.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:23] Yeah. And I guess you would have done it under false pretenses, thinking that the theology and the doctrine that you were following true.

Tina Beard [01:34:33] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:34:37] Which is, I guess, which. Which begs the question around consent, right?

Tina Beard [01:34:44] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:48] Zane, when you were talking about this couple and you, you witnessing their basically partnering and how they're coming up with their lives based on strengths, and it's really like connecting to themselves, you know, and that's what I think oftentimes with roles gets lost for both is not just connection to each other, you know, but like connecting to yourselves too. So you're not connecting to yourself. And that partnering of like, I'm really good at this, or I really, like, love this and this noise that there's like a. There's such a beauty in that. Right. Where you're coming together and kind of strategizing as opposed to, you know, putting on these things that don't fit and don't really take you into consideration. You're not, you're not connecting with Yourself, you're not connecting with each other. You're just sort of putting on this,

John Dehlin [01:35:44] you know, kind of the church identity. The church gendered identity.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:49] That's right.

Zane Beard [01:35:51] I think. I think that's what it comes down to is that, you know, if you look at the family proclamation, the doctrine of the church, you have gendered roles in the church, and so you feel like they're the guardrails that you can't go outside of unless there's some, you know, it says, unless it's like some weird circumstances like death or something like that, you know, disability. Whereas my friends are totally not bound by that. And. And that's beautiful. You know, that's revelatory. That's, you know, you imagine just us counseling about it and praying together and going, what do you want to do? What do I want? You know, let's do this. Or let's both work and let's get someone this. To do this. Or, you know, but you just slot into the church is true. The church told us to do this, so we're going to do it and we'll be blessed.

Margi Dehlin [01:36:40] Yeah.

Zane Beard [01:36:40] And it doesn't work out like that.

Tina Beard [01:36:43] When our youngest turned one, I had gotten to a point where I was like, that's enough. I need to do something for myself that I'm interested in. And so I started training to be a bodybuilder. And that was kind of a real awakening for me because I. I got to meet other people outside of the church that I would train with that were also competing in these bodybuilding competitions. And they were great humans. You know, they live normal lives and had great relationships with their partners. We became really good friends, and we'd compete in these bodybuilding competitions. And I was kind of like, they don't have the gospel and they're really happy. Do I really need this?

Margi Dehlin [01:37:38] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:37:40] Well, let's. I'm glad we really. I'm glad we really spent the time to talk about this because it's, you know, we talk a lot about LGBT stuff. We talk a lot about racism. We talk a lot about truth claims. We probably don't talk enough about the. The role of gender and the. The plight of women within Mormonism. And there's plenty of Mormon women that are going to say, I love being a mom. All the sacrifices were worth it, because my kids and I love my kids, and I sacrifice for my kids. I think the point is, if people are given all the information and given all the opportunity with a flexible framework, the woman can be happier, feel more Fulfilled and. And ironically be a better mom if she's able to be freer, to see more options and there's less stratification of gender roles. That's. That's all I wanted to kind of maybe, maybe say.

Zane Beard [01:38:41] Good point. Great point.

John Dehlin [01:38:42] Yeah. Okay. So should we talk about becoming bishop? And I hate to say the term bishop's wife. Yeah, that's the term, right?

Zane Beard [01:38:55] Yeah. Well, what year.

John Dehlin [01:38:57] What year. What year did you become bishop?

Zane Beard [01:39:00] So that would have been 2020. March 2020. So what? I was serving in the High Council, and we were actually going to move. Move wards, move areas, because our kids were going to school about 20 minutes drive away. And it was kind of frustrating. It was this beautiful. Well, at the time, beautiful school. And so we're like, let's go move closer to school so Tina doesn't have to drive that much. We kept looking at houses in that area and just didn't feel right about it. Just couldn't find anything and just felt like it wasn't right to move. And so we were going to move. People in the ward knew we were going to move. The stake president called me and said, hey. I kept. I keep hearing you're going to move. I just want to know, are you moving or are you staying? And we, that day, had just decided, out of frustration, we go, I feel like we need to stay, you know. And so we decided to stay. He called us up and we said, well, president, it's really interesting today. We decided we're going to stay in the wood. And he goes, great. And I said, why do you want to know? And he said, oh, don't. No reason. And I thought, oh, that sounds suspect. You know, something's obviously coming. But I knew that our bishop's time was up. I knew being in the High Council, that I would be a candidate amongst others. I didn't think. I actually thought it might be someone else because other people had more experience and so forth. But. But I started getting feelings that it was me. And we talked about that and, you know, were like, yeah, that would be. That would be interesting. We'd have to do the best we can. So I got. Ended up getting a call, like on a Friday while I was at work. Can you come see me? From state president asking if. If he could come, if we could go see him that night. A new ward conference was that Sunday. So I was like, oh. And now bishop had done well over five years, so I thought, all right, something's going on. And I thought, maybe it's a counselor still. We Came in and he asked to meet with Tina first and put. Have me sit in the High Council room. And I just heard them laughing and I was like, what are they talking about? Having a crack. Crack up at my expense, I thought. And they were just talking about, talking about me. And you know, Tina can share that experience later. But yeah. And then he came in and said, hey, you know, you sat down, we had a prayer together, we spoke and he said, hey, I've got a letter from the First Presidency and the Prophet has called you to serve as a bishop. And, and I just remember feeling like, like the shock of being present but not present. Like just, just like time stood still and I was trying to keep up. My mind was trying to keep up with him talking. And I wasn't like hearing it all. It was just shock, even though I was kind of expecting that might be the case. And. And then he said, I want you tonight to go away and you and Tina talk about your counselors, pray together, select your counselors and let me know in the morning. And I thought that was really cool because I never thought that you would, you know, talk about it with your wife and counsel together and pray together. Heaven forbid, not the women. So we went out for dinner and we're shocked, but excited in a way, scared in a way. Maybe Tina was feeling a lot more different feelings than I was. But I, we, we had gone through all the ward lists and was thinking about counselors and felt good about keeping the current counselors and got sustained that Sunday. Then on Wednesday, the Lord was so displeased at me being called as a bishop that he told the Prophet to cancel all churches around the world. And we went into lockdowns because of the covered pandemic. So we, I was started as a bishop my first week. We were locked down and we had no church that Sunday for about six months. And I think we'll back. We would go every now and again. We'd have like ward and start and stop and based on local regulations. And so that was like an interesting first part of being called. Yeah.

What It Means to Be a Mormon Bishop

John Dehlin [01:43:23] So really quickly, for half our listeners have never been Mormon. Being a bishop, being a Mormon bishop is like being a pastor of an evangelical Christian congregation or a priest of a Catholic parish. It's not a paid position. You have a full time job and you serve as Mormon bishop. And there's something you said very quickly, Zane, that I think reinforces how much of an honor and how much of a big deal it is to be a Mormon bishop because you said you got A letter from who?

Zane Beard [01:44:01] From, from the prophet or from the president of the church.

John Dehlin [01:44:04] Which means what?

Zane Beard [01:44:07] Which means, well, who we regard as the prophet who talks with God himself has called me to serve as the bishop of this area. It's one, not, there's not many callings in the church generally that you get called by the, the prophet or the president of the church to serve in this capacity.

John Dehlin [01:44:24] So, yeah, yeah, like prophet talks to Jesus and God and they say to the prophet, call Zayn as bishop of which word?

Zane Beard [01:44:34] Wind. Yeah, it's a weird name. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:38] And so for every, I can speak on behalf of every orthodox believing Mormon young man or man. It's something that if you're really righteous and if you really believe in the church and you really care about the church, you, you kind of either expect and, or want that call to come at someday. Not because you want to, not only because you want to serve, but because it's very validating to say you've been doing Mormonism. Right. So, Zayn, I want to ask you whether in your, but it's also culture to say you don't want it, to say, I didn't want it, I didn't seek it. But that's, I don't know if that's always true. So, Zane, I want you to address that in terms of what you were wanting and hoping for and how it felt. But then, Tina, you know, I guess it could also be validating and exciting for you, meaning your family has chosen. Of all the families in the ward, in the congregation, your family has chosen. I wonder if it was ambivalent, an ambivalent thing, or if at first it felt exciting and validating. So you go first, Zane.

Zane Beard [01:45:50] I, I, I was honored to be called. I was excited, like out of the pride because, you know, you have a bit of swagger in your step. Like people like, oh, he's the bishop, and you get like a natural man sort of hit about that, that people look up to someone as a bishop and that you, oh, he served as a bishop or he is the bishop, or it's validating because sometimes in the church you feel judged by the callings that you've had or that you have. And I remember sitting with someone who's close, who had served in a lot of leadership position and like very high leadership positions in the church, and he's like, oh, he's nobody. He hasn't even served in a bishopric, you know, and, and so I remember feeling like sometimes your level of righteousness or how well you're doing the the church is aligned with that. So it wasn't that I was seeking it, but it was very validating, you know, in that. In that sense, like, it was validating to be called as a bishop. I, you know, I wasn't, like, hoping it was me. I. I, like, I wasn't actually that attached to that, but if it was me, it was, like, validating. I liked the idea of working with people and helping them, and so I was looking forward to that. If it was me, I had no idea what I was getting myself into too. You know, like, it was. It's. You don't know unless you've been a bishop. You never know, you know. And so the things that are scary and crazy and stuff about serving as a bishop, you don't know that yet. Kind of like going on a mission, you know, in a way sometimes, or your endowment even, sometimes, you know, so going. I wasn't there, but I was. There was an element of pride. I don't know if there was an element of, like, ambition, probably, you know, but definitely validating. Yeah.

Tina Beard [01:47:43] I think for me, my dad was bishop, and so I kind of knew what we were in for a little bit. I wasn't. I wouldn't say I was excited or felt validated as, like, oh, we've reached this pinnacle and we'll be worshiped hero. I don't know. I wasn't. I wasn't excited about it. I knew what I was in for. I knew that Zayn's personality was not, you know, your typical bishop. He wasn't. He would do things differently. And so I thought this could be a good thing for people because he is himself and he's not a robot. But the funny thing I found was I had contemplated leaving the church prior to this, and we talked about that and.

John Dehlin [01:48:46] Oh, we skipped something.

Tina Beard [01:48:50] Yeah, well, I. I just, you know, it. It had been a long time for me that I wasn't happy in church

John Dehlin [01:48:59] and felt, if it's okay, let's go back. Because I. I didn't realize we missed you getting to the point where you were thinking about leaving. So forgive me. Rewind and let's go back to that part of the story so that you can. We can understand the full context of him getting called, if that's okay. Sorry to interrupt. That's just feels like it's worth spending some time on.

Family Challenges During the Bishopric Years

Tina Beard [01:49:22] Yeah. Well, so we have four children, and our eldest has autism. She's has Asperger's, and the second and the third both have adhd. And so Sunday mornings for us are horrific. Getting them to church is the worst experience every single Sunday. My eldest struggles with the sounds in the chapel, the lights in the chapel, the amount of people in the chapel, and then all the extra noise. You know, so the microphone, the mic, and the speakers is one thing, and then all the extra noise is another thing. So. So getting her into the chapel is a battle every single Sunday. And she'd often cry in the car park and say, I'm not going in. And Zayn would often be visiting at the wards because he was in the High Council. And I just got into the point where I was like, this isn't worth it. It's not working for me. It's not working for the kids. We're not happy doing this church thing every single Sunday. And it's. We come home exhausted, and they hate it. The kids hate it. And so I. I just kind of said to Zane, and obviously, I didn't have a testimony. I didn't believe the church was true.

John Dehlin [01:50:47] Okay, let's go back and talk about that, because we missed that part too. When did that happen?

Tina Beard [01:50:54] I guess I started to think that it couldn't be true when I started seeing friends and family who had left and making new friends outside of the church and going, hold on. They're not supposed to be happy because they're not living the gospel, or, you know, they don't have the fullness of the gospel. How are they living these happy, fulfilled lives? And then the friends that Zayn was hanging out with when he first got introduced to the church had also left the church, and they were having massive success in business, and their lives were happy. You know, they would travel and there was. There was no unhappiness. And I think the narrative in my head growing up was, if you are disobedient to the commandments, you'll be unhappy or people will die in your family, or, you know, these are the punishments that will come about because of your disobedience or because you've abandoned God. And so it wasn't marrying up for me. I was like, these people are happy. They're not living the commandments and they're having success in business, and their marriages are still together. No one's died in their family. You know, it's. It doesn't add up.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:14] And

Tina Beard [01:52:17] so I guess from the time I started these competitive bodybuilding competitions, I was kind of like, why? Why do I do this to myself? I'm putting all this extra pressure on myself to be this person and to live these rules. And it's not benefiting me. And so that continued for years and years. And with Zane being in the High Council, I was like, it sucks. I'm doing all of this on my own and the kids hate it. And I don't feel joy, I don't feel spiritually uplifted. When I go, it feels like a burden. And but then on the contrary, I was like, oh, but it's good. There's goodness. You know, the kids have friends and the. Charlie will be going to youth soon and she'll be able to do young women's nights and things like that. And that's fun and that's good and, and she'll enjoy that. So I was like, okay, well I'll just stay. I'll just stay and, you know, pretend. So.

John Dehlin [01:53:28] So not being happy is a really important theme. We, we will have just aired. By the time this is released, we will have aired this episode with Stephanie Brickerhoff where she talks about three kids and reaching into her 30s and having what she thought was the perfect Mormon life with the perfect marriage and three kids and being miserably depressed and anxious. Seven years of psychotherapy and or antidepressant meds driving her as a believing Mormon woman to try mushrooms in this desperate effort to just try and, you know, finds what's wrong? Why isn't this working? Why isn't this making me happy? So you've addressed that. A big factor was it wasn't making you happy and it wasn't making the kids happy and you were seeing other non Mormons or people leaving the church being happy and successful. But there is the question of it being true. Did you, did you confront that prior to Zane being called as bishop? Did you, did you explore its truthfulness, its truth claims, its history or not?

Tina Beard [01:54:42] No, I was too scared. I was too scared to look into any of that because we are told that we shouldn't look at any of any anti Mormon literature, which I've come to realize now is just facts and science. So I didn't ever look at anything because what I didn't mention is that two of my brothers rebelled in a really severe way so much that they've caused a lot of, I guess, how would you put it?

Zane Beard [01:55:15] Same sadness and anxiety.

Tina Beard [01:55:18] Yeah, like sadness for my parents. They've been involved with the police and with gangs and things like that. So it's been very extreme. And so I was so scared to, I guess, put a foot wrong because I didn't want to hurt my parents. I didn't want to put them through any more Heartache. So I didn't want to look at any truth claims. I didn't want to mess with anything further, you know?

Margi Dehlin [01:55:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:56] Yeah. Okay. So. So it wasn't working, but you weren't yet aware that it may not be true.

Tina Beard [01:56:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:09] Okay. Okay. But that's not. Yeah. So I could imagine. Yeah. Then when Zane. So what happened when they called you? The stake president calls you in before he even talks to Zane and floats the idea like you. I would imagine maybe you wanted to run away and say, heck, no, but I could all. I just also want to say that if I were you, I would have felt a lot of power differential and a lot of social expectation that you not only accept the calling, but that you show that you're happy about it, even if you're not. But what. What was it like for you?

Tina Beard [01:56:54] Yeah, I would say it was exactly like that. I felt this cultural, social pressure to be okay with it. And in a weird way, I knew that it would be something good. And socially it would be something good, I guess. And I knew Zayn would love it. I knew that he would love the opportunity to serve and to help people and that he would do a great job. And so I didn't want to stand in his way. I didn't want to deprive him of the experience and opportunity. So I was supportive. And I had said to the state president at the time, I said, look, I have thought about leaving the church. I. It's really hard for me, but I've decided to stay because there is goodness for my children and I'll support my husband in his calling.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:56] Yeah. I love how honest you are. Yeah. Ensuring. Okay, I have a quick question with regard to, you know, the extension of a calling like bishop. I think it means really different things if we go back to kind of gender roles. So I was just wanting to connect for a second is what. So when you're being called as bishop, oftentimes for the bishop's wife, what it really means is that you're going to be on your own pretty much on Sundays and also for a number of nights during the week. Right. Because oftentimes bishops support activities that are going on, like youth activities or different things. So my question is, did that hit you at that time with the extension of the calling, this idea of what was going to be asked of each of you and kind of required of each of you, and did it feel different from what you were giving so far, or were you at that point, like, it's going to feel very similar to what I'VE done so far.

Tina Beard [01:59:11] I knew it would be more. I knew that it would be a lot more than what he was doing now because he would visit other wards and maybe have a meeting once a fortnight, maybe during the week. But his job was also really demanding. So.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:26] Right.

Zane Beard [01:59:27] He.

Tina Beard [01:59:27] He would have meetings late at night for his job because he would have international calls and things like that, and he would travel for his job. So it was kind of like this would add on to what's already happening in my life. It would mean that Zayn would be less available.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:51] Yeah. Yeah. Did you guys process that at the time, at all?

Tina Beard [01:59:57] I don't think so.

Zane Beard [01:59:58] I think we. I was a deer in the headlights in a way as well. I think we might have both been. We didn't really know what to expect in that sense, but we did talk about kind of like setting a limit on how many nights a week. In the beginning.

Margi Dehlin [02:00:12] Yeah.

Zane Beard [02:00:14] In the beginning it was like, we don't. I'd only be out two nights a week or when it was covered, doing zooms two nights a week and then on Sundays. So I. We tried to set a boundary straight away, but that was. That, that, that was probably all because we didn't know. And. But when I got home, you know, we got home from this and he's like, the State President's like, read the handbook. Like, that's the training. Right. And so just to be clear about

John Dehlin [02:00:48] that, you don't go to theological school, you don't go to weeks or months of training. What is the training of a Mormon bishop?

Zane Beard [02:00:59] Read the handbook. That was pretty much it. And one meeting with the last bishop to talk about everyone in the ward who he's working with or was working with.

Tina Beard [02:01:07] And I'll. I'll just say here, on his first day, after he's been set apart, somebody asked to meet with him and they meet with him for two hours straight. And so that first Sunday, he doesn't get home till about 6 o' clock at night. And I was like, is this, Is this what it is?

Zane Beard [02:01:29] Yeah. Oh, man, I was exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. You don't get a lot of training.

John Dehlin [02:01:35] Well, really quick, just so, just because we don't really get the chance to have this type of conversation, explain to our never Mormon viewers or listeners the types of issues a Mormon bishop is asked to deal with with no training, whether your experiences or ones you know of, I'll.

Zane Beard [02:01:54] I'll tell you, experiences that have happened to me, I've had. Yeah. I'll be vague, you know, but I've had to deal with people talking to me about their own child being. Being molested, people talking to me about their children being molested. I've had two people come out to me as LGBTQ plus. I've had. I've had people come and talk about addictions with drugs, addictions with pornography, cheating on their partners, lots of marriage abuse, faith crisis where they've lost. Lost their faith or transitioning. Faith. Yeah, there's. Yeah, porn. Porn addiction, loneliness, sadness.

John Dehlin [02:02:55] How about mental illness?

Zane Beard [02:02:56] Mental health is massive. Yeah, mental health. Brethren and sisters come to you and crying. Or you seek them out, you pray, you feel that there something going on. You go and visit with them, you try to understand and you see, you know, like you do that. I think it's better now where they don't often. I don't know, it's weird. Like you have people that are. When they come meet with the bishop, they're really expecting, like really good counsel that comes from God, you know, in a way,

John Dehlin [02:03:36] is that over? Is that exaggerating or do Mormons believe that you, as the bishop, communicate to and for God to them?

Zane Beard [02:03:46] I would say it's a spectrum, you know, like I've got one who will literally write down things I say. I don't. Didn't know this until later. They would write down things I would say and pray and ponder on them and try to implement them. Like very zealous about everything I'd say. And they would bring up things I've said heaps, you know, like that sort of. I know. And would repeatedly tell me, I know you're inspired, you're a mouthpiece of God and that sort of thing to some that probably like, yeah, that's a good opinion, you know. But I say to people, I'm.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:15] You need.

Zane Beard [02:04:16] You know, I would refer a lot of people to mental health practitioners, psychologists, that sort of thing, because they need professional help. I don't. I. I think people where there's a gray area is around, like marriage issues, addictions, things like that, where they may. They probably do need professional help, but they are thinking you can help them. It's hard for them to accept they need professional help. I think bishops have, you know, it. What, what is amazing about the bishop's role is like a bishop shouldn't be giving them advice on how to deal with their mental health, just basic things. But it's a great little first step to then the have someone they can talk to to encourage them to go see psychologists or whatever. Now, in, in an ideal world, most people should be Doing that with their family and friends. I don't know if the church culture creates it, that you go speak to your bishop, but it. It does create a lot of those opportunities. But. But then you're not trained, and I wish there was better training. Like, there's stuff you read, and there's lots of resources on reading that you read, and I think that's better than it is before. In time to time, we would get training on certain things. Very basic. But you'll throw it in there like that first Sunday, I, you know, people are coming in, and you have no idea what they're coming to talk to you about. And it is sometimes the most hectic things, and you. You're trying to go, what would a good bishop say? What would you do? Or, you know, what. What does the Lord want them to know? So you.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:05] You.

Zane Beard [02:06:07] It is a challenge in that sense.

Pastoral Struggles and Lack of Training

John Dehlin [02:06:10] So, like, was there ever a training of what to do when a youth or adult comes out as lgbtq? Did you ever have that specific training?

Zane Beard [02:06:21] Not at all.

John Dehlin [02:06:22] Did you ever have what to do when couples. When a couple. When there's been infidelity in a couple? What to do?

Zane Beard [02:06:31] No.

John Dehlin [02:06:33] What to do when a kid has been sexually abused or molested? How to help the kid?

Zane Beard [02:06:42] Only. Only in the sense of our legal obligations recently, you know, like. Our legal obligations. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:49] So how to protect the church from legal liability. Nothing about how to help the kid heal or get better.

Zane Beard [02:06:58] There was a little bit of that, but it was very much around, hey, we have a legal obligation to do this. You should be reporting it, that sort of thing, or. And going to the church hotline and stuff like that. But the. There's an expectation that you'll help someone find hope and healing. There's no doubt about that. And we are expected to help them find that peace and comfort and send them to professional help. But you were not trained on how to do it.

John Dehlin [02:07:24] What about how to help a member who's losing or lost their faith?

Zane Beard [02:07:31] No, no. That's even more probably problematic. I developed faith crisis training for our ward council and their presidencies, but I had to create it out from scratch, you know, and I worked with a member in our ward who'd been having a faith, you know, transitioning faith crisis. Dallas Woolley, who's been. Who's been an amazing supporter and helper to me. And we trained, you know, that, but we had to create it. We had to. I worked with, you know, some people from other podcasts, you know, that are more faith affirming, you Know that sort of thing to try to develop it. And from that book, I think Bridges. Yeah, like, like develop that. But it was not. There was definitely nothing. You know, some talks, but the talks are conflicting as well. You know, one you'll have talks from say, Oaks or Bedna and stuff that's very one way. And then you might have some from some others where it's like, like Ballard was saying, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't testify to people when they ask questions. We should try to answer their questions. And so no training on that.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:48] I have a quick question about if you had not necessarily training, but what has the impact been on your mental health to go from a place where you're a member to a place where you're hearing or a lot of people's pains and suffering?

Zane Beard [02:09:14] Yeah, I think Tina noticed that in me, like the emotional battle of hearing very, like the abuse stuff or things like that, where it drains you emotionally. It never got me to like depression and that sort of thing, but it's, it's, it's, it's tough. And sometimes I would have meetings with people and I knew that it was going to be a really big one and I would get a little bit anxious about meeting with them. Because you'd be scared of, oh man, this is going to be like. It's like, John, when you're going to go present in front of everyone in Shanghai or something and you're like, this is a big one and you get nervous about it, you know, like you'll be here, you don't want to stuff it up, so you do that. I think you, the, the thing that I found really hard, I think this is just my personality though. It's really hard when you're trying your best and people don't like what you're doing too, because people are vocal as well sometimes and that hurts, you know, like when you got certain parents or something that they don't like the way you're doing something and you feel like a failure. And that, that, that was probably, that's probably been the most painful to me and then the emotional drain. But I've, but I'm dealt with that probably fairly okay. Because I'm not carrying it for days and days. Just probably over that next 24 hours.

Tina Beard [02:10:50] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:54] Was there, was there training around self care and how to not wear yourself too thin? Not, you know, training on how to not let the calling as bishop harm your own mental health or impinge on your family duties? Any type of training like that?

Zane Beard [02:11:11] Well, no, no. Official training. But my stake president was really good with that. Like, he was. I remember sharing the challenges of being a bishop and navigating family, and he said to me, bishop, you're the boss. You. You make your own time schedule. It's up to you. If, if this is impacting your family, then stop. Slow it down. You know, And I was really excited to hear that. And that's when I cut back, you know, because I thought that it was an expectation. There was no formal training. But he. I guess your training comes from your stake president in that sense. And he would help me, like, realize that it. You don't have to be there for everyone all the time. But definitely nothing around, you know, dealing with your own emotions and mental health challenges or especially dealing with people when they come and they have a faith crisis and they're asking you things about the book of Abraham and stuff like that, and you don't know what to say. You know, that's. There's no training. You've got to deal with that in the context of your own faith and intellectual honesty and spiritual honesty as well.

John Dehlin [02:12:24] Were you. Were you made aware of the gospel topics essays and were you given in any. I guess you've already said you weren't given any training on how to answer tough questions from people learning difficult things about the church.

Zane Beard [02:12:39] I would listen to the Leading Saints podcast a lot, you know, which helped me from a church leadership perspective. You know, it's obviously a very faith, faith sort of based one. And I. They had a lot of good, you know, discussions that weren't like, too orthodox, black and white and trying to deal with some of this. So I would say that helped prepare me and listening to faith matters and a few other podcasts and stuff helped me have a nuanced perspective. I would consider myself probably more progressive in. Though I don't like that word because, you know, Harold B. Lee said a progressive, someone without a testimony, you know, and I have a test. Well, I had a testimony and I was progressive, you know, and nuanced. But the training never came from the church. It just came from other sources. Yeah, unless it was like the. My stake president who would give us things from time to time. He was very good with individual, specific matters. You would call and say, I've got this, and you would counsel together on that individual person, you know, but a lot of the time that's after you've already met with them and had your first few meetings and. Yeah,

John Dehlin [02:13:52] I guess. Tina, I'm wondering if you have any reflections about just this this topic of training or just about what it's like to adjust as, as the wife of, of a bishop with four young kids.

Tina Beard [02:14:10] I think what was alarming to me was that Zayn was dealing with these things that were, that he was not qualified to deal with. And, and we would talk about, you know, instances and he would send them off to psychologists and things like that, which is fabulous, but I know, never

Zane Beard [02:14:35] share the names of people.

Tina Beard [02:14:36] No, no, no, no. His name would be vague and share, you know, an example of something that had happened so I wouldn't know who he was talking about. And it was just alarming to me that a bishop was the first point of call for these scenarios when as a true believing Mormon, that wouldn't be my first point of call. I wouldn't go to my bishop. I would go to qualified professionals for guidance on things that, relating to mental health, on things relating to marriage, you know, and so watching him deal with that was puzzling to me. And he is amazing in that he refers on to professionals. But I know in the past, many bishops don't and haven't done that and they have said, you know, you need to read and pray more, you need to read your scriptures and things like that. So it was a lot. And I did watch Zayn kind of carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and feel that I couldn't add anything more because he's, he has a demanding job and then this demanding calling on top of this that requires his mental space. So we would have discussions and I would say, you know, you're spending so much time focusing on bishop stuff. And he's, he would say, well, I'm only out one night a week, or I'm only doing, I'm only out Sundays and this night. But he would be replying to messages. You know, people would be messaging him constantly and he would be planning youth nights and he would be planning activities and things like that. And it was just filling his mental space. And that was a lot to watch and still is a lot to watch. He has pulled back at certain times and, you know, given less time and attention to his calling. But that was because I have kind of pushed that agenda. And as a, as a wife of a bishop, there's a guilt around that because you're expected to be okay with it. You're expected to allow him to give all of his time and attention to serving the Lord instead of time and attention serving in our family. And I don't want to create the idea that Zayn's a bad Husband or a bad dad by any means, because he's incredible and he gives a lot of his time and attention to the children and to me, and we have a great relationship. But it is impacting, it does impact the family in a big way.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:43] Yeah. So makes sense that it would.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] What was the conversation like between you, knowing Tina, that you had teetered on leaving the church and. Yeah. What was that conversation like knowing that Zayn would now be the representative of the church for your entire congregation While, while you, Tina, had just been contemplating leaving. How did you talk that through?

Zane Beard [02:18:12] I, I, I, I don't. And, and I think you said it. I didn't know. And I don't think Tina knew that. She just flat out thought the church wasn't true. I think she had doubts when, when I became bishop. But we spoke about, like, because she was surprised they called me as a bishop because she felt surprised because of her, you know, because she felt like she wasn't, like, bishop's wife material, which is crazy, you know, but she is. And they, so she, we, we spoke about that before, and afterwards, she's like, I think you said, I've got to be now on my game. Or I think you felt like, you felt like you had to step up a bit.

Tina Beard [02:18:50] Yeah.

Zane Beard [02:18:52] And, but I don't think it was a case of, I remember you telling me you felt like the call came from the Lord, you know, like, like you felt like I was called by God.

Tina Beard [02:19:03] Yeah.

Zane Beard [02:19:03] And so there was obviously elements of testimony there. It was, it was probably a couple of years later, a year or two later, where it really came to the forefront, where it was you saying pretty much you don't believe the church is true anymore. And that was the first time I'd probably really heard those words come out of her mouth that was like, not just expressing some doubt or disappointment or frustration with the church. It was like, now don't believe it. Yeah.

Tina Beard [02:19:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:37] But before we talk about that, what does it mean to be bishop's wife material? What, what were, what was in your mind as to what, what a worthy bishop's wife would be like and how you feel like you felt short, fell short. If you don't mind sharing.

Tina Beard [02:19:58] It's hard to put into words, I think, what bishop's wife material was, but in my mind, I viewed somebody that was present at every event, every activity on time for church, helping organize things and having the missionaries over all the time for dinner and just putting my hand up for everything. And I was definitely not putting my hand up for anything. I Was late for church every Sunday and did not attend Relief Society activities or any. Any extracurricular stuff. It was. I was doing the bare minimum and I. In my mind, the bishop's wife was very supportive and very actively involved and that just wasn't me.

John Dehlin [02:21:00] I guess you. You had experienced postnatal depression and feeling like you weren't happy. I wonder how that would factor into your excitement about the call.

Tina Beard [02:21:15] Well, the kids. Our youngest. How old's Georgie when you got called? She was six when we got called. So postnatal depression had completely gone. It was just more knowing that I would have to step up and play a role and be fake. I had to fake it.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] What do you mean, fake? Fake what?

Zane Beard [02:21:48] Faith it till you make it.

Tina Beard [02:21:51] Oh, fake my desire to be there. Fake my. Because at that point, it wasn't that I didn't believe. I just didn't like it. I didn't.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:07] Not a good fit.

Tina Beard [02:22:08] Yeah. I didn't. I didn't like being there. I didn't get much out of it and I just felt like it was draining more than it was anything else.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:17] Yeah.

Tina Beard [02:22:18] So I had to kind of switch and be happy about it and change my whole thought processes around it because I wanted Zane to be happy.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:36] Did you. Did you change behavior? Did you change what you went to or how often you went, or was it more of like an internal thing where you're trying to reframe your experience and feel differently about?

Tina Beard [02:22:52] Was definitely internal. I did try and go to more. I tried to be more visible because I thought that's what the bishop's wife should be. She should be at Relief Society activity. She should be sitting in Relief Society. Thankfully, I got a calling to help with the special needs children in our ward. So I. My calling was to basically just be their person that they can go to and help them when they're having a meltdown or distract them when they're being irreverent in Primary. And so that really helped when Church went back for me to. Just because I enjoyed that, you know, I enjoyed being around the children. I enjoyed, you know, these special needs kids and my people. So I get them. I get that it's hard to sit still for two hours. I get that we don't want to sing the same songs every week and we would rather be looking for lizards in the garden. And so that's what I was doing. And that made it so much easier.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:00] Yeah. Oh, I was going to ask you a question because you had mentioned, and forgive me if I have the timeline off now. But that you had started bodybuilding. Right. And that you had kind of almost started creating a little world for yourself and kind of cultivating and getting to know people kind of outside Mormonism, the Mormonism bubble. So where was that in relation to this bishop's calling? And did that in any way thwart it? Was that after. Like, where does that fall in here? And was it affected by the bishop calling?

Tina Beard [02:24:45] It definitely wasn't affected by the bishop's calling. It was long before Zayn got called as bishop. How many years would you say it was?

Zane Beard [02:24:52] 2. Before I got called?

Margi Dehlin [02:24:54] Yeah.

Tina Beard [02:24:54] So maybe my last competition was two years before Z got called. But I was very cautious of sharing anything on social media ever when it came to my competitive bodybuilding, because I was. I don't know if you've seen competitions, but you. You're in a little bikini on stage and you're flexing muscles and, you know, so I was very conscious that that was immodest and unacceptable.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:28] I see. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:31] Okay. So I guess, should we talk about next? There's at least two things I want to talk about soonish. One is what led to Tina, you losing your faith completely. And then I guess I also want Zayn to hear your reflections on what you loved about being a bishop and any experiences you had that were problematic for you. And then we'll talk about Zayn, your faith after Tina's. Those are a couple things to talk about. Where do you guys want to. Where do you think the next logical place is in the story?

Tina's Faith Crisis Begins

Zane Beard [02:26:09] I think Tina's faith crisis came first. So maybe you want to talk about, you know, what was happening while I was serving as a bishop and you diving into a bit of church history stuff,

Tina Beard [02:26:21] I started watching. I'd always been fascinated with cults, and so whenever I was. Even as a child, whenever I was in a doctor's surgery and I'd see a magazine, I'd look for any kind of journalistic perspective on cults and things like that. And then when the Netflix series Keep Sweet and Obey came out, I was like, oh, I've got to watch that. And prior to watching that, I'd watched the Scientology documentary and Keep Sweet no Bay was really triggering for me, and I didn't understand why it was triggering. And then I just saw so many parallels to the way they worshiped, to their prophet, to their strict obedience to laws and rules, and. And just the connection to Joseph Smith. And it just really upset me and made me really uncomfortable. And so I was already, at this point, really angry with the Church and angry with the expectations on. It's all cultural, right? There's nothing written out other than the proclamation to the family that, you know, women should sit back and be at home and let their husbands go and serve. And I was just angry and felt like I was a doormat basically for Zayn to serve and help everyone else and that their needs were more important than our needs. And this wasn't Zane's view. Zayn didn't think that, you know, I need to neglect my family, which he wasn't neglecting. But, you know, I felt hurt that I was second place to God and the church. And so then I just started reading things. I started looking at things on tick tock and YouTube and then I started reading the. What was that thing that I read?

John Dehlin [02:28:53] Let me ask you really quickly before we get to that, let me ask Tina. So I'll put links in the show notes to Keep Sweet Praying Obey and Going Clear. Those are two documentaries that I think you mentioned. Going Clear is on Scientology. Keep Sweet Pray and Obey, I think it's called maybe Some, Maybe not, but it's about Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church. Do you mind taking a minute to share what that has to do with Mormonism? Like, there's a lot of Mormons who would say, oh, those. Those crazy, weird, extreme fundamentalists who do polygamy down in Southern Utah or in Colorado, Arizona. That's not in any way Mormonism. Like, that has nothing to do with who the Mormon Church is today. Why would a documentary about the FLDS Church and Warren Jeffs affect your Mormon testimony? Do you mind going into some details about stories or information that you learned?

Tina Beard [02:29:55] Yeah, absolutely. So growing up in the church, you're not really taught the history of the church. You're taught that, yes, Joseph Smith did have multiple wives, but it was out of necessity because all these men were getting called on missions. And so he needed to. To marry these women to support them.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:18] And

Tina Beard [02:30:20] this made sense to me as a child. What a nice thing to do. What a great man. And then, then as you get older, you're kind of taught that polygamy is potentially something that is practiced in the celestial kingdom, but only a man can take extra wives. And so the. The Fundamentalist Mormons are a breakaway from the LDS Church and lds. The LDS Church was practicing polygamy in Joseph Smith's day and for a while after Joseph Smith. And then when the. They changed the law that Mormons were not going to practice polygamy anymore. The. That's where the fundament fundamentalist LDS church originated because this group wanted to continue this practice because it was a celestial practice, which is what we believe the highest degree of heaven is. Is the celestial kingdom. And if you make it to the celestial kingdom, then you can take on more wives. And so the fact that they broke away from our church and continued to practice this practice of polygamy was very jolting to my soul because it made it real that originally that is what we believed. That is a practice that we believed to be a revelation from God. And so it didn't sit right with me. And they believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he

John Dehlin [02:32:08] was,

Tina Beard [02:32:11] you know, an instrument in God's hands in bringing the true church to the earth. And they believe that their way of living, the LDS Church, is the true way to live. And so that just unraveled me because here's one religion that is built off our religion, but they still believe it in such a devout way, the same way that so many true believing Mormons believe our church is true, the way they bear testimony, the way they revere their prophet. All these parallels were the same. And it. It really shook me because of how devout they were. Did that answer your question?

John Dehlin [02:33:02] Yeah, that was great. Did. Did. Did Scientology make any connections for you? I'm just curious to go and clear documentary.

Tina Beard [02:33:11] Yeah, it did. It did. Again, it was the fervent devoutness of the members and the rules and the regulations and the. The culture of the group that really kind of made me think about psychology. And a couple of years before that, I looked into life coaching. And through that life coaching, I learned so much about psychology and the brain and how powerful our brain is. And so choosing to believe certain things and being fervent in certain ways made. Made it clear to me through this learning process that you can believe anything you teach your brain to believe.

John Dehlin [02:34:09] And so. And so Scientology has some by. By all accounts, kind of really strange beliefs. And then you started wondering whether you were under similar conditioning. Maybe.

Tina Beard [02:34:22] Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think as well, what also brought it to the head. To a head was I started doing a teaching degree, and they asked us. We were learning about child psychology and the environment that the child is brought up in and the influences and conditioning and things like that. And we were asked to write an essay around our own conditioning. And when I put it into words, I was dumbfounded.

Margi Dehlin [02:34:57] And

Tina Beard [02:34:59] it kind of, I guess, solidified everything that I had already thought and made it clear to me. And my professor at the time was really took a shining to me and made really, she made connections with me and we became good friends, and she really looked out for me from that time on. She was from an Indian background and was very influenced by her culture and her religion and things like that. So we made a really strong connection over that.

John Dehlin [02:35:36] Yeah, a little learning can be a dangerous thing.

Tina Beard [02:35:40] We should not read.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:42] Yeah, it's not, it's not only that too, though, because I hear also you creating a space, space enough for you to process your own experiences and then write about them. Because I, I heard, I mean, maybe this is wrong, but that your feet. You were a little bit surprised by what you wrote.

Tina Beard [02:36:03] Yeah, yeah, I was. Because it made it real, you know, it made the idea that I have been conditioned to believe a certain way a reality. And, and the idea that I could have been raised in a different faith and had the same devoutness was really alarming.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:29] So Tina and Zane, I'm wondering, so, so, like, the, watching these documentaries, the FLDS documentaries and the Scientology documentaries, this was like a year ago, less than a year ago. How long ago was.

Tina Beard [02:36:44] It would have been over a year ago now for.

Zane Beard [02:36:48] I didn't, I actually wasn't really aware that she was looking at them. It was, I was, yeah. Like, I, I, I, I, I didn't know until Tina started, like, talking to me about stuff and bringing, bringing it up and like, to, like, I heard this or, you know, I learned about this, but I could also tell, like, a bit more, like, developing more angst towards the church. Like, it was, it wasn't in the past. It was angry more at the demands where now it was, it was cutting to the depths of her soul where she was angry at the church as an institution and as a, like, as a real, true, living church. More so than just the demands of it. It was this, this was, you know, much deeper, much more real. And the questions were like, like, and the discussions were becoming, like, less about the challenges, but more about. Tina would even say to me, you know, I'm thinking of leaving when you get released sort of thing, you know, and like, that, that's when things started to do it. But, but at that time, I did, I, I didn't know. And I think you, you kind of jumped off the sweet spot. You know, the Netflix documentaries, all that sort of stuff into podcasts and then, and, and into hearing a lot of people's personal stories that you connected with.

Tina Beard [02:38:20] And then I, I would read, like, I read the CES letter, and then I would read more about the history of the church and Finding out about polyandry and

John Dehlin [02:38:36] tell our viewers what polydry is.

Tina Beard [02:38:39] It's when, well, Joseph Smith would approach married women and ask them to marry him, and it was manipulated in a way that it was for their salvation. So if you marry me, your whole family is going to be saved and you will be in the celestial kingdom, which is the ultimate for a Mormon person, is to make it to the celestial kingdom. That's what our whole life is for.

Studying Church History and the CES Letter

John Dehlin [02:39:08] Okay, and so, so Zane's bishop, while you're starting to study things like the CES letter, what other resources were you studying? And were you conscious that you were losing your faith while your husband was bishop?

Tina Beard [02:39:27] I was very, very conscious of this. And we would have so many discussions about it because it was a really uncharted territory because you don't hear of bishops, wives leaving the church, you know, and we were kind of trying to navigate this space where, okay, if. If I leave the Church, what's going to happen to Zayn? Am I going to limit his opportunities to serve by me leaving the church? Absolutely. And do I want that on my conscience? Do I want to be the villain in this story? Because essentially, that's what I will be. I will be the villain, and I will be made out to be. Not strong enough, not faithful enough, crazy, all these things. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to put Zayn through that. And so I had resigned myself to just faking

Zane Beard [02:40:29] for.

Tina Beard [02:40:30] And for the next year and a half. So I would continue to re. I would listen to podcasts, your podcast. And

John Dehlin [02:40:41] had you, had you. Had you been warned? What did the church taught you about, you know, what books or podcasts you should or shouldn't listen to. Was there any fear in that? Was it an easy decision? Was it a natural decision?

Tina Beard [02:40:59] There was so much fear because there is so much preached from the pulpit to doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. And you. And, And I guess the narrative in the Book of Mormon is when you're obedient, life is great. You know, the Nephites get blessed when they're obedient. Then when they turn wicked, God sends down wrath and destruction and war and all these kinds of things. And so there is this fear placed that if you are disobedient, your life is going to fall apart if you're disobedient. And disobedient means looking at anti Mormon literature. Anything that goes against what we believe is considered to be anti Mormon literature. And so there's this fear that if you start to read these things, Satan will get a hold of you and you will be one of, you know, you'll be led by him, basically, you'll be led out of the church and you will live a miserable life. And so for me, looking at anything that was not church positive or promoting was very scary. And I don't know, I did a little bit and I was like, oh, this is really good information. How come I don't know this? Oh, I need a little bit more. Oh, I need a little. Oh, I've been lied to. And so it was this progression of wow, this whole narrative that I've been taught has been controlled to be made out to be something that it's not.

John Dehlin [02:42:48] How like the church did put out the Gospel topics essays. The Mormon Church did put out the Gospel topics essays in 2013, 2014. The idea was to provide a more accurate account of its history in a faithful way so that members could read, learn, and have their doubts resolved. A, why weren't the Gospel topics essays enough to booster your faith, to boost your faith and bolster your faith and keep you in the church? And then B, how did you overcome the fear of the conditioning to learn from other materials? Those. That's a two part question. Sorry. So the gospel topic says this.

Tina Beard [02:43:37] Yeah, I just think I just started to not trust. I just started to not trust the narrative that was given. And I needed to know more because I felt like there were so many things that were conveniently not put in and so many, so much information that wasn't provided, but it was available from other sources that were credible sources. So I think when you feel like you've been lied to, you start to not trust anything that's supposed to be truth from that source. And the more I learned, the less fear I had because I felt like, how can I trust what you're saying to me then if you've curated this story to benefit you?

Zane Beard [02:44:44] And

Tina Beard [02:44:47] I don't know, I. It was almost like I was feeling enlightened and the spirit was guiding me. I. A friend sent me a picture recently that depicts a bunch of people walking with umbrellas like this. And then one person with their umbrella down with the rain coming down like this. And it's almost as though when you step out and you start to see things differently and understand things that weren't taught to you before. You feel enlightened, you feel like your world is opened up and you're no longer covered by this shelter that kept you so naive.

John Dehlin [02:45:39] Yeah, that's beautiful. And just in case there's other people who are Wanting to study what. What you would say is more credible or accurate or honest or open resources. What were the re. The resources that you did find to be credible and accurate and honest that were most helpful for you in learning what you would say would be the truth about the church?

Tina Beard [02:46:11] I. I read the CES letters, and those were really helpful for me because they. They were so articulate in the way they explained things, and they went deeper. I would also recommend listening to podcasts, and there's a number of books that I can write later that I can't remember off the top of my head.

John Dehlin [02:46:38] Okay, so maybe we'll include in the show notes the podcasts and. And we'll include CES Letter and whatever podcasts you say were helpful.

Tina Beard [02:46:48] Yeah. And I think when I started listening to your podcast, I would then go and look into the people that you interviewed, and particularly people that had a lot of education around church history and things like that. So that really helped me to get a better grasp on things.

John Dehlin [02:47:11] Okay, so. So how much time went by where you were going down the rabbit hole and you. And you weren't telling Bishop. Bishop Zayn?

Tina Beard [02:47:26] I'm not very good at keeping things to myself. Zayn had gone away for a couple of days on a work trip, and that whole time, I was just devouring everything. And he came home, and I was just like, did you know this? Did you know this? Um, how. How do you know this? And I think what came out in this, when he came home. So it was probably two days after I'd really dived deep, and he had told me that he'd had a faith Crisis, you know, 10 years ago when he read Rough Stone Rolling, and that it really rocked him. And that was heartbreaking for me because he hadn't shared that with me. And I felt like, what you experienced all this pain and suffering that I'm feeling, and you didn't even tell me. So I'm pretty open, and I can't really keep things to myself.

Zane Discovers Tina's Doubt

John Dehlin [02:48:26] Zane, do you want to. Do you want to share with us what. What your experience was when you found out Tina was going down the rabbit hole?

Zane Beard [02:48:35] Yeah. So after a while, you know, it started. You know, firstly, it was just the real challenges about me being, you know, being a bishop, which I expected, you know, like, that was going to be natural, because anyone having a husband as a bishop's going to be a challenge. I had to kind of scale it, scale it back. But I knew at the same time we would also, you know, like, it was kind of like, what if it isn't true, kind of is God real? I would say you need to pray. You need to get your own relationship with God again. You need to, you know, kind of like was more like heavenly Father and in obedience, does obedience really bring blessings? You know, that sort of stuff. So I knew there was, there was something there, but it was kind of always there. Like Tina shared. But when I knew it started getting heavy was I came back from Sydney and it was like, whoa. A lot of questions, a lot of heartfelt, deep ones. I could tell she was educated on the concerns. You know, like I, I, I had read the CAS letter. I, like, as a true believing woman, remained a true believing Mormon because I just refused to accept like a lot of this stuff. Like, I read the apologist response red rough stone rolling. So I knew the issues, but I had like this nuance in my mind that it was either in these three buckets was, it was either. Yep. Joseph Smith was pretty ordinary and terrible sometimes, and so was Brigham Young and probably everyone since, you know, and that's such a easy way out in a lot of times. But I just kind of put everything in that bucket or I put it in a bucket of like, there's nuance to that. There's, you know, there's, there's, there's messiness and there's some truth and there's some non, you know, or it was on my shelf, you know, and there were things that I'd put on that shelf that I just couldn't explain, but that I had faith that would be revealed one day. I think a lot of people are in that sort of. So when she started bringing things up, I knew a lot of these things, but I never really resolved, had resolved them, you know, it was, I was aware of them. Some of the things I had superficial answers for, you know, some of them I didn't. And I was, I, I was scared that I, I didn't know. It got to a point where she wanted to leave the church and that she didn't think it was true. I thought it was just she was struggling with the testimony and that was okay, you know. And we actually, actually had a discussion around what would happen to our relationship if she left the church. And it was like a, I remember saying, honey, that is never on the cards. Like our relationship is. If you leave the church and never come back, that's okay. Like, our relationship's solid. I love you. Because our relationship started where one of us wasn't a member. Yeah, we love each other enough, you know, and you have.

Tina Beard [02:51:38] You know, I was terrified that Zayn would want to leave me and find a member girl that was going to find. Fill that role of bishop's wife the way that I had imagined it should be.

Zane Beard [02:51:52] Yeah. What surprised me was just like, I remember going out on my birthday weekend, and we went out, stayed at a hotel or something, and it was like. Like really wanting to talk about it a lot of the time. And it was hard. I found it hard because here I'm a bishop, I'm trying to defend the church, but I'm also, like, trying to be loyal to my wife's real, true struggles and not gaslighter. And so when she was saying, this is a problem, I had to freely admit that. And a lot of times, you're right, that is a problem. I still believe it's true. But this, you know, or, you know, and. And it was. It. It started to go, like. I started to worry. All right. I'm like. It got to a point because it got worse and worse. It was like, I think I need to be released, you know, or I think I need. And. And at the same time, we'd already, like, before that, already made a decision that we were going to move before all this, you know, like, we wanted to move to the Sunshine Coast. And so it started being, okay, well, this could be, like, really convenient. Like, we move and I get released, and then Tina can leave the church, and then I go to church by myself or with the kids. That was kind of like where the discussions went really quickly.

Fear, Hiding Disbelief, and Marital Tension

John Dehlin [02:53:20] I want to go back and slow down. 1. One really important thing, Tina, that you said, you said, I was terrified the Zayn was going to leave me. And this is where, you know, there's people that are, you know, obviously very uncomfortable with the Mormon church ever being called a cult. It's offensive to call any church a cult. No one who's in a cult believes they're in a cult. Like, the word cult is problematic on so many levels. But there are all sorts of religions out there, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, lots of Catholics. Where if their spouse were to lose their faith or leave the church, that idea. I was terrified that my spouse is going to leave me. Would never. Would never cross their minds. It says it's a particularly small set of churches in the United States where a spouse would feel terrified at the prospects of losing their faith, that their spouse would divorce them. And I just. I want to slow down and kind of like, highlight that, because to me, that's. If people don't like if Mormon church leaders or orthodox believing Mormons don't like the church being called a cult, I get it. But then create a culture where those thoughts that Tina had that she was terrified her husband would leave her if she left the church, create an environment again. Mormon church leaders create an environment and a culture where no married person ever has those thoughts. Do you guys want to opine on that?

Zane Beard [02:55:19] 300.

Tina Beard [02:55:20] Yeah. I mean, the thought process comes from the idea that we all want to get to the celestial kingdom. And you can't get to the celestial kingdom unless you're both fully active members of the church who have been sealed in the temple. And being sealed in the temple is basically a marriage ceremony in the temple. And you can only go there if you've been through an interview with someone who has authority, a bishop and a stake president to clear you and say, yeah, check you're worthy. You can go in there. And so by me leaving, I'm no longer worthy. Not that I'm, you know, out there drinking or having affairs or anything like that. It's just that I will no longer be paying tithing which deems me unworthy, and I'm not attending church. So those two things alone will mean that I can no longer. I'm no longer keeping my covenants, basically.

Zane Beard [02:56:23] I think there's also a stigma around when one spouse leaves that you feel like you are the traitor or the problem. You know, when sometimes in the church, the way we talk about people that leave is terrible. You hear that person's less active. Oh, how does that happen? Oh, apostasy. Oh, it's happening to everyone. I can't believe they got sucked into that. You know, or so sad. Or isn't it hard his wife doesn't come anymore, you know, or is that person still active? Oh, they didn't go to church. You know, the gossip. And I reckon there's a bit of not only worried about rejection from your spouse, but rejection from your community is obviously a huge thing. Rejection from your family. Feeling like, if my husband's at church by himself, and then there's like some attractive woman that's fully faithful in hitting on him, is he gonna be like, oh, that's a better proposition for me, you know? And you're feeling like either way, you feel like there's a box that you ticked that. No, that box. You're not ticking anymore. So how important is that box for that relationship? I think the. The. I don't know if the. Like, I think it used to counsel people to leave in those really Like, I've heard people talk about that, you know, now they don't, you know, they cancel with you to stay. But. But I don't think they're kind of really promoting the culture like you say, John, and. And sometimes change. Like, they. Like there'll be a culture shift in the Brethren, but they don't like to go out and say it from the pulpit. And, you know, they rather to keep it on the download for a while. And then when people have these problems, oh, the church has believed that forever. What are you talking about? Like, kind of the gaslighting. So I would say that we're there in principle, but in terms of, like, fostering that environment, we don't do enough, you know, and we don't do enough to like. And we define ourselves as Christians. And the way Christ looked at those that had left the 99 and 9, you know, and it was a. It's a. It's. It's love and care and understanding rather than gossip and disappointment and all that sort of stuff. So you've got that husband, wife dynamic wrapped up in everything. So I think a lot of people and you. You know that John and Margi as well, that they just choose to stay because it's too hard to do anything else. And I'm proud of you. I'm proud of Tina for, like, kicking up against. Like kicking up against spring or pushing up against the grain to go. You know what, like, integrity and honesty means enough to me that I don't want to be silent. I want to be authentic, you know, Very challenging to do that in our culture.

John Dehlin [02:59:26] But, Tina, did you say that you decided the church wasn't true, but decided just to hide it and fake it? Is that what you said?

Tina Beard [02:59:34] Yeah. Yeah, that was my plan.

John Dehlin [02:59:37] Around. How long ago would that have been? If either of you even remember how many months or years ago was that?

Tina Beard [02:59:43] It was only about six months ago. No, it would have been a year ago.

John Dehlin [02:59:48] Okay.

Tina Beard [02:59:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:50] How'd that go?

Tina Beard [02:59:52] It was tough. It was really, really hard because it's everything that I've ever known. It's my culture, it's my community. And then having, you know, that cognitive dissonance and then feeling like, okay, I don't believe this, but I'm gonna fake it is. Is exhausting to put it plainly, because when you've got children who don't want to go, and you're like. And they're like, why do we have to go every Sunday? And I'm like, yeah, why do we have to go every Sunday? You know, it's really hard to fake it at home and at church when there's also the expectation is that we are teaching the gospel in our home to our children. And that falls on me predominantly, but I had stopped doing that a long time ago, and so Zayn picked it up and that we just don't do that anymore.

John Dehlin [03:01:08] Yeah.

Tina Beard [03:01:09] So I don't know where I was going with that, but.

John Dehlin [03:01:13] Oh, well, it became exhausting to. To fake it at church and at home.

Tina Beard [03:01:17] Yes. Yeah. So just keeping up the appearance that you are all in and all believing and, you know, supportive is very hard when in the back of your mind, you don't have a reason, you don't have a great motivation anymore because it's not for the blessings, it's not for, you know, your hope to be in the celestial kingdom. When all of that is taken away, it's really hard to have a reason to fake it other than to protect your family and, you know, keep up appearances so that people don't gossip.

John Dehlin [03:02:04] Powerful. So, Zayn, let's. Let's ask you, like, well, what happened to your faith? Tell us about your faith journey after realizing that. That Tina had lost her faith and your bishop, and you're still bishop to this day.

Zane Beard [03:02:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:02:22] What's your faith journey been like?

Zane Beard [03:02:26] Yeah, well, I, I sort of had this. I was always fairly nuanced and progressive because I'd read a lot of those things and had some of that, and I knew the apologists, so apologetic response to some of the qu. You know, like a lot of the big ones. And so I had a. A couple of members in the ward who would have faith crisis. And even before that, when, before I was a bishop, I remember posting like that Elder crisis. Is it Corbridge, you know, the general authority, where he talked about, like, there's first level questions, second level questions, first level questions, and man, that sparked controversy. I had over 150 comments on my Facebook and I was talking with a lot of the friends who'd left the church, and we're debating it very respectfully, mind you. Like, it was great, but I was nuanced and I admitted that we make mistakes and we challenge and we, you know, there's not answers to some of those things. So coming into a bishop, I was, I felt like prepared, you know, to talk about that. And we had, you know, those in the ward that would come and they would. They were very respectful and they would talk about things, but. And I would. I think they liked that I was understanding. And I remember having a brother come into me with a faith crisis. And he was, you know, I remember saying to him, I just want you to know, firstly, that you belong here. And I, I, not only do we want you here, but we need you here. We need your voice. We need your perspective. You've got a wonderful understanding. You've got wonderful faith in God. Please come and please, you know, share your share. Share your feelings. I'll never silence you. And, you know, no matter where you stand, we always want you here. And that was. That felt good, you know, because I didn't have answers to everything. And we did training on faith crisis, and we would. A lot of the training was around listening and understanding and talking about the things they do believe, talking about the faith cart, where some things are in the cart, some things are out, and it's okay to not have everything in. So we're trying to.

John Dehlin [03:04:31] You said that was training you developed or training that the church handed down. And it sounds like that came from Patrick Mason's planted book. Is that right?

Zane Beard [03:04:40] I read that. But we also had the Bridges book and. And then some other podcasts. We just kind of put it together, me and this other guy who'd. Who had pretty much lost his faith but was helping other people in the faith cross. We trained that at his home with his wife, who was lovely, who'd left the church, and she, you know, shared her story and cried and how people, you know, she left and no one cared. And it was really. It was. It was amazing experience, but it was really trying to go as far to the edge of being a true believer in Mormon, but being as nuanced as possible at the same time. Difficult position to have, which we know, like with Bill Real and others and yourself and where you. It's hard to continue down that track. And so I had that, and then I had, you know, Tina, and then I had another gentleman who came out to me with a faith crisis. And while this is all happening with Tina and he was bringing up the Book of Abraham with me, he's like, how do you explain that? And I remember just sitting there going, I just can't lie to him. I just can't say the Catalyst theory, because he knows, and I know that's a load of rubbish.

Zane's Own Faith Collapses While Serving as Bishop

John Dehlin [03:05:49] So for those who. For those who just stumbled on this and don't know anything about the story of the Book of Abraham, let alone what the Catalyst theory is. Can you. Can you summarize?

Zane Beard [03:06:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:06:01] The church's line is on the Book of Abraham translation. And then what the problem with that is. And Then what the catalyst theory is trying to do and why you didn't feel good about sharing it.

Zane Beard [03:06:13] Well, the churches, the church's line has always been up until recently that, and we know that Joseph Smith received some Egyptian papyrin and he translated it by the gift and power of God, even came up with his own Egyptian translation of what the characters meant. So literal translation into English. And it was a story that the, the papyri, the hieroglyphics were all talking about Abraham's life and, and what he did and in Egypt and so forth. And so for the whole time it was, hey, the Lord sent these ancient writings to Joseph Smith, he translated them. We now we know all this about, of Abraham, but the problem is not, you know, like they couldn't translate Egyptian then, so now they can. And it's got nothing to do with Abraham. Doesn't mention Abraham, doesn't mention anything about anything in the Book of Abraham. And to the point where we've got these facsimiles that these like parchments with all this hieroglyphics and drawings and stuff on them that he translates that are now proven to be completely false. So he obviously wasn't translating by the power of God. And he says he was translating it by the power of God. And now that's come out and the church changed its position to now it's a revelation where it actually had nothing to do with the book of Abraham. It's just funeral scripts, you know, that are just standard in Egypt. That now he. Is that. That he was just using them and getting a vision of Abraham's life.

John Dehlin [03:07:42] But so is that the catalyst theory that he needed that instead of Joseph Smith translating the Egyptian papyrus into English, which is what we were all taught and what he claimed he did and what the book of Abraham itself says he did, now the church is wanting to change the narrative to say that God sent the papyrus to Joseph Smith to inspire him to pray, to get revelation, to produce the text of the Book of Abraham as a way to get around the fact that there's no connection between the actual original papyrus and what Joseph produced.

Zane Beard [03:08:22] Correct. And, and we also know that the book of Abraham itself, like the writings, are like, inaccurate and have things that were different, wrong timing, history, people, places, that sort of stuff. So even the text itself is, you know, flawed. But, so I was sitting there with this brother and I, I just thought, what? And I was praying, what can I say to him that's honest to myself, honest to him, honest to the Lord. And in the context of Tina, and all this, you know, multiple discussions. And I just said to him, hey, in the end of the day, I just want you to pray and feel, is this place a good place for you? Is it a right place for you? Is it good for your soul? Is it good? Does it bring, does it bring you joy and peace? And if it does, please come. But that book of Abraham, I, I don't know, I don't have an answer for that. And it was, and, and he goes, thank you. You know, he appreciated the honesty, mind you, hasn't come back. But I was, I was sad because I got to the point where I couldn't defend it honestly. You know, like I, I couldn't parrot the gospel topic essays or the responses. You know, like I've visited other people and they talk about Joseph smith marrying a 14 year old and I, what do you say to that? When he pressuring young women to marry him and saying that their salvation's at stake and their families. What do you, what do you say to that? You know, and the, as a bishop, you, you, you have to defend the church and it's not you, you can't defend it. You know, the, the things that you, you have to lie or you have to say things like, is it a good place? You know, this, the Bushman Patrick Mason approach now, which is, you know, what is truth? You know, is, is, you know, God's working through this. It's great. And I was saying that. So I got to a point where that was my defense. There was no academic defense. That's logical. But the problem is that defense in my heart doesn't work for me personally. And so I was battling with that. I was battling with Tina and my love for her and, and, and my heart going out to her. Still having wonderful experiences, even last week, meeting with members, having wonderful experiences. Probably going to have some today too. It's Sunday here, you know, but knowing

John Dehlin [03:10:49] you're, you're after this interview on Mormon stories, you're gonna go be bishop of your, of your current ward.

Zane Beard [03:10:55] Yeah, yeah, I'm going to state conference and then I'll probably, I know that there'll be people who I will be chatting to that will want to meet with me at state conference. And I have got people that I plan to try to catch, you know, so that will be the case. And, and so you got this battle right where you are trying to be honest. You've been taught to be honest your whole life. You've been taught to do, you know, like, I don't think God's not a lie. You can't. As a bishop, you don't want to lie at the same time, you want to help people. And, and then we went to our friend's house and they had left the church and they were so happy and they had lived a good life. They did it and they're talking about how hard it was to leave, but now it's beautiful and they're, you know, and it just broke my shelf that night. Not like I think it was already cracking, obviously, but I didn't break it as in I didn't believe. Like I stopped believing. But I started going, what if it isn't? What maybe I, you know, because I just, I think it was just that last social bit because I was doing everything I can to wrestle and I was still praying every day, reading my scriptures every day, doing come follow me every day. Did it for months after this, you know, and I went home and I went to bed. I woke up in the morning early and instead of pulling my comfort me out, I pulled out the CES letter like online. As I'm going to read this for the first time without saying in my heart that the church is true. And I'm going to find how to wiggle my way out of that. I'm just going to read it going, whatever comes, you know, like just, let's just suck it all in and make a decision at the end of it as opposed to coming into it with a decision. I think if you really, that's how you got to be really honest with yourself self. I think you gotta, you gotta look at it not in the prism that it's true, you know, in the prism of let's seek truth, let's find out. And then that's what it was. And it, my eyes were opened. I think I lost my faith that morning because I read through it. I had a lot of things that I was debating in my mind. But I push, push, push, push it down. I had the problems the challenges with Tina was facing and my heart going out her and I just dawned on me it's not true. You know, it's, it's now when I say it's not true, I don't know. It's not true. There are things about the church that I cannot explain if it's not true. Like I have a shelf now that's not the church being not true shelf, it's the church being true shelf. That there's things like that I, you know, like I don't believe the church is true in the more in that anymore, in that sense. But there's things on a shelf that I can't explain, but that's okay. But I believe good information leads to good inspiration. Remember Elder Zabrowski said that when I was a missionary and he was training our mission. And I think that's true in, you know, and, and once you really understand the information, then you're in a position to get good inspiration. And, and through that. Then I went out for dinner with our friend Dallas and his wife Cassie and we went and we spoke about how we're feeling. I'm not sure if the church is true anymore. And that was huge thing for a bishop for that to come out of his mouth to a member of my congregation, you know, but I trust them. And we spoke about it and what ended up happening was he said he's. The next day he said, why don't you go and have a look@mormond discussions.com and they've got some wonderful research there. And I jumped on that website and man, I just devoured that. I think there's 45 or something, I can't remember. There's so many essays on that. And it talks about the church's position, it talks about the history, the apologetics, but I devoured that up and I think in a week I read everything and I, I just realized it wasn't true. But then it dawned on me, Sharks, what am I going to do now? You know, I'm a bishop, I've got, you know, 300 people in my ward.

John Dehlin [03:15:17] So how, how long ago was that moment?

Zane Beard [03:15:20] December.

John Dehlin [03:15:21] It's Christmas, so we're talking three or four months ago.

Zane Beard [03:15:24] Yeah, so I've been going to church every Sunday, meeting with people ever since. No one knows. My wife knows. Those good friends know, Dallas knows. That's it. And you guys, and you guys, the delinquents. So, you know,

John Dehlin [03:15:42] talk us through what, what the dilemma is. Because a simple minded person would just go, well, resign. Like resign, get out of there. It's not true anymore. Integrity means just resign. Talk about the complexity of losing your faith as a bishop or as a missionary or as a BYU instructor. I mean that you can't speak to those. But talk to us as a bishop. What, what the complexities are once you've lost your faith, what the pressures are, what the fears and the anxieties are, what the sensitivities are.

Zane Beard [03:16:15] Yeah, well, firstly, I'll talk about the outward things. I, I really love my ward and I really care about them and I'm working with a lot of people, and they're making great progress. And we've seen miracles in marriages and, you know, their life.

Tina Beard [03:16:38] And

Zane Beard [03:16:40] it's like, I, I don't want to hurt them and I don't want to rock their faith. I don't want to hem them to go, oh, is everything he said now crap like, is that a loaded rubbish now because he lost his faith? I don't want to hurt. I don't want the controversy for the ward and for the confusion for their kids. And I got great relationships with the youth and the priests were out for dinner just the other night, I took them out for dinner. And we're talking about what they want to do when they finish school and the missions and stuff like that. You know, I know if I leave that it's. It's gonna shake and hurt people, and I don't want to do that. I don't want to hurt people and have to put them through that experience. I'm also getting released soon. I don't know when, but because we're moving and our house is for sale, I know I'm getting released. So there's a natural thing now. I wish we were getting released quicker. I wish that would happen. And our state president's aware of Tina's situation, and so they're looking for a replacement bishop now. They're definitely not aware of my situation. But so it. Why, why, why not just wait a little? Like, wait a couple of months or some few more weeks and just let us slide away and not put. Got through that ordeal. That's the outward stuff, the inward stuff as well. From a family point of view. I don't want to have to put my kids through that. We haven't even spoken to them. They're sitting upstairs right now. They don't know anything about this. And we want to control that narrative. Like, we want to talk to them ourselves and really have a good conversation. And I. We don't want it to be a black and white. You know, we're there one week and gone. We. We want to talk to them about the timeline and the process and how we want to do it and how they feel. And if they want to keep going, we're going to support them. And I'm. I don't. I'm not angry. I don't hate the church, you know, like, there's things that I hate about the church, you know, but I don't. And now it's tough. I am really scared about people coming to me with a faith crisis now because I don't Want to lie, but I'm sad. I'm worried about that. I think I'm just going to have to say that same line. Do you find value here? Do you find joy? Is it bringing. Is it a blessing to you? Then. Then continue to come? That's all I can say. You know, I continue to pray. I continue to pray about people. I continue to. You know, I was calling someone yesterday because I was worried about them, had a big chat with them. You know, I'm still going to fulfill my duty to them, not to the church, but to them. And, and, but I'm balancing my wife and family and kind of pulling back more. And I had been doing that already. So I don't know. When you're watching this, I'll be released as a bishop. So hopefully life's sorted itself out and we're okay. But right now we're a bit scared because we got all that in front of us.

Margi Dehlin [03:19:53] Yeah.

Tina Beard [03:19:54] And it is scary when the church, because the church has answers to everything. The church gives you a blueprint for life, I guess, like we've talked about earlier. It gives you milestones, it gives you things to work towards and teaches you what you should and shouldn't do and how you should behave and how you shouldn't behave. And so undoing all of that is very daunting, particularly when you've held a position of leadership, you know, and knowing that there's people that rely on you and knowing that they, they come to you for guidance because you in their eyes, speak for God.

John Dehlin [03:20:39] Yeah. This is so powerful and I'm so grateful for your honesty. We're so grateful. Zane. I. I have a friend, very close friend, who lost his faith but was just keeping it secret. And then his bishop, then his stake president called him to be in the bishopric. And he told the bishopric, he told the. Sorry. He told the sick president, I don't believe anymore. And the stick president said, that's why we're calling you.

Zane Beard [03:21:11] We want you.

John Dehlin [03:21:12] You're laughing. He said, we want you in the bishopric because you don't believe. I was talking to an acquaintance I met recently who was literally called as bishop, as Mormon bishop, as a non believer, when the stake president called him as a bishop, not as a counselor, as a bishop. This other gentleman told the. Told the state president he didn't believe anymore. And the stake president said, that's why we want you to serve. So this is happening more and more in the church.

Zane Beard [03:21:43] Yeah, I'm very. Yeah, that's super interesting, isn't it?

John Dehlin [03:21:47] But, but Then I watched my friend serve in the bishopric for multiple years, and for him, it, it really wore on him, especially as a matter of integrity and as a matter of conscience. Can you speak? You, you, you referred to that loosely. Can you speak to that maybe a little bit more?

Zane Beard [03:22:10] Yeah. Like, if I wasn't moving and getting released, I would have to be asked because I think I, I've got to be true to myself, but I've got to be honest with my stake president and with the church. I don't, I don't know how you can serve as a bishop without a testimony because you're asking people to do things that you, you're not prepared or don't believe yourself. You know, you're doing temporary command interviews and things you don't believe. So it is an integrity issue. You know, it, it is. Well, that's how I feel. You know, I, I, I, I, I couldn't remain. And so I'm remaining for this little bit now because it's a good balance. But if it was, if, if we weren't moving, I would be getting released. Yeah. And, and because. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. It grates on you and it is hard. It is hard sitting there and even, you know, like, without being a bishop, just sitting there and hearing stuff at church that, you know, is not true. You know, and it's getting spoken from the pulpit or getting, you know, magnified somehow, and you're going, you know, you're like, oh, really? It's a bit strange, but, but I'm, I'm actually handling it okay. Like, I actually, the, the big problem is just the time demand now that you don't believe it's true. The time sucks because you really want to be with your family. And then you're like, hey, I'm not even doing it now for the. Because you think it's the right, like it's the Lord's work and you want to, you know, like, you, your, you know, the youth activity and all that stuff, you just kind of, man, now it's a real, that's the real hard thing. And I, I'm kind of just really counting down so that I can get that time back.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:03] Yeah. That I so feel for that. And you can just feel it in you too, Zane.

Tina Beard [03:24:09] Like the.

Margi Dehlin [03:24:10] I feel on some level too, like this place. Do you have a sense for the timeline at all for this, like, in between, it's almost like a waiting place before you can kind of begin doing the work of kind of what, what's next and all of that. Do you have a time frame there? Because I do think it is very difficult to be in a place where you're waiting. You have a sense like you're waiting for.

Zane Beard [03:24:39] Well, they've submitted the name of the next bishop from my understanding, so. So that should be within the next month or so.

Tina Beard [03:24:49] Yeah.

Zane Beard [03:24:49] You know, then we're moving. That will depend on settlement.

Tina Beard [03:24:52] I'm laughing because Zane asked to be released in November last year.

Zane Beard [03:25:00] Well, this was because we were. We were planning on moving. And so I said, oh, hey, we're moving. It'd be a good time to meet. And they were gonna find a bishop. But it has been taking them this long.

Tina Beard [03:25:10] It has been the most drawn out process of them calling another bishop. And names keep getting rejected and keeps coming back. And every time Zayn speaks to the state president, he's like, it'll be like another two to three weeks. Every single time, another two to three weeks.

Zane Beard [03:25:28] I think, I think that. I think they're on. I think they're onto a winner now. I think there's. I think. I think it's going to be. Well, I don't know if I'm overly

Tina Beard [03:25:37] optimistic in terms of the. The winner.

Zane Beard [03:25:39] It's not the state president's fault, though, you know, Like, I just hate. He's. He's been really proactive about it.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:44] Yeah.

Zane Beard [03:25:45] And. And some of the, Some of the people he probably like that, that, you know, the church had other callings in store for them, you know, that were pretty big. So I think it's just that case of trying to find out, you know, like, work that out. So he, you know, but it has been. We. We didn't expect to be waiting this long. Yeah, but it hasn't worked out well in not. Not the waiting long, but has worked out well that we decided to move. We're planning to move. And then the faith crisis came later. Well, a month later. And it's kind of like. Yeah, yeah.

Planning to Step Down and Next Steps

John Dehlin [03:26:25] Tina, you're wanting to say something.

Tina Beard [03:26:28] I was just gonna say, in terms of the holding pattern and the waiting, you know, we had had our house on the. On for sale, on the market before Christmas. And so the goal was to be out of this area by the beginning of January this year. End of January this year. And then our. My business started taking off and I was employing staff and things like that. And so I felt like I needed to be here to train my staff, because where we want to live is an hour and a half drive away. So I just said to Zane, can we just stay A bit longer so that I can focus on my business, so that I'm not doing these massive transitions all at the same time, because it's a lot. And so we took the house off the market and we put it back on. And so now we're like waiting for the house to sell. When the house sells, then we can move out of the area and then we can almost be intentional about the way we want to live our life and make the choices we want to make, because we do feel. Well, Zane more so than me. But this obligation that we were talking about before is that he has this obligation to the people and we don't want to have to face that after he's released almost,

John Dehlin [03:27:52] you know. You know, people, people who haven't been Mormon won't understand how catastrophic it would be to a ward. You know, these wards are built over decades and sometimes over a century. There's a lot of history in a Mormon ward and a Mormon congregation. What would happen if a Mormon bishop just got up on Sunday in front of the whole congregation and said, hey, everyone, I've studied church history. Joseph Smith, you know, practiced Polyandry. He propositioned 14 year olds. His scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, are no longer not historical. And I've learned this all for myself. I'm announcing it to you as a congregation and I'm stepping down. Like someone would say, why don't you do that, Zane? And then secondly, what would happen if a bishop did that?

Zane Beard [03:28:47] I've thought about it, you know, not, not too much though, because I, I think I know that if you did, if I did that, that it would be catastrophic in the sense of how hurt people would be, how confused people would be, and how I would throw them into this church history rabbit hole. And they may not be ready yet, you know, as well. And you, you've got to also protect your own family. Like your kids, like do I want them to have to. They've got friendships in the ward. I don't want them to have to. Their parents go to them. Their kids are, you know, allowed to hang out with them anymore. You know, it would be, it would be news that would go across Australia, you know, definitely. And it would be the gossip of all the town. I don't feel like I have to be true to myself by doing that. I feel like I'm by, by not doing that, I'm more true to myself. I know that sounds like it's a cop out, but in a way it, that either of them are cop outs. You know, there's no real win win situation here. Trying to do the best for me, for my family, for my congregation. I still feel like they're my congregation, you know, and that. But partly of doing this is being honest and coming out. And I hope and I know that there'll be members of my congregation that are watching this now, and I want them to know that I. I love them then. I love them now. I am available to talk about any of this and into anyone that wants to, you know, and partly, I didn't want to put you through this, you know, one of my congregation, because I know how painful and hard it is, and you don't want to be thrust into that, you know, and have to come from someone that you loved and cared about and then feel like all of that maybe was. Was not real, you know, when it was. It was real for me. So, yeah, I. I could. I could get up and throw everything out and. And leave now. I don't. I don't hate the church enough. Like, I'm not toxic, and. And I get that there's people that leave. Like, I've. I had an LGBT man come out to me, and I tried everything in my power to make him feel loved. Like, I. I told him I loved him. I told him, if you. If you. In a. If you marry a man, I want you to come. I'm going to go up and shake their hand and hug them and say, you're welcome here. Come. No matter what I had. We had. He wanted to come out. We had him come out to the priests. We had pictures of the Savior washing feet of LGBT people, and we talked about God's love for LGBT people. And it's not their choice. They've grown, you know, and they've got lots of great gifts to give the church. But, man, when I sat in front of him and he said, but you still think it's a sin, right? I was so conflicted, you know, I did not want to say, yes, I believe in gay marriage. I've actually believed in gay marriage even before I was called as a bishop. You know, I don't have a problem with that. Those are the hard things as a bishop, that. That I. I get how people are angry with the church. It hasn't been my experience, the LGBT thing myself, but it has been the experience of others. And I get that experience is. Is real. My heart does. I hope I don't have to have anything like that again as a bishop, because. And I wish so badly I could tell this brother. He knows who he is. If he was listening. I wish so badly I could tell him, go be you, man. Go do it. Go. Go find someone you love. You are not going to get torn away from your family in the next life. If there is a next life. God is going to embrace you, love you. He's gonna accept you. You're great just the way you are. That's what breaks my heart as a bishop. If anything, the integrity around that is what. What buckles me, even as a tbm, that hurt me. I just never. I just never accepted the church's position on that. Well, haven't for a long time.

John Dehlin [03:33:00] And so you're saying you weren't able to tell him that as his bishop?

Zane Beard [03:33:03] Yeah, Yeah, I just. I know we were having these discussions. Like, I was heartbroken because I so badly wanted to say I went as far as I could, but that we had the priests hug him and tell him how much they love him and it's okay, whatever he chooses, you know, and. But I couldn't get. I just couldn't. And I was, you know, talking with North Star, you know, the churches, you know, well, not. They're not the church, but affiliated with the churches, you know, and it's very much kind of toeing the line of the church position, like. And it. As a bishop. And this is what. Another thing that bishops like me are having to do that knowing that it's wrong spiritually, knowing it's wrong having from what, you know, like feeling like the same Holy Ghost that's prompting you to visit this widow and bless her and help her when right in the time of the needs, the same spirit you feel, telling you that the church is wrong with LGBT issues, and then you're meant to sit there and go against God you feel and tell them that, you know, there's something wrong, they should never, never be with the people they love. To be honest, out of all the things, that's the most conflicting for me. I hate. I hate doing that. And I. I really look forward to not having to do that. I so badly wish I could meet with him. And why don't I. Because that is so confusing for a bishop to say that and then be released and another bishop to say, that's a sin. You're never allowed to do that. I don't want to have to put that through, but I do wish I could meet with them after a bishop and say how I feel, but not come from a bishop.

John Dehlin [03:34:36] And.

Zane Beard [03:34:36] And so I respect the church's sort of doctrine and authority in that sense, even if I disagree with it. But man, that's, that's tough. And when it comes down to the integrity, that's what hurts for me. Not so much remaining in the position, it's complicated. I'm trying to balance everything, do what's right for people, but that, that's the tough one.

John Dehlin [03:34:56] Tina, what are your reactions to the qu. To the dilemma about coming out and being vocal versus not? Do you have anything to add about your own observations or desires?

Tina Beard [03:35:11] Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking for me to watch Zayn wrestle with this. But also I know this person and he told me that he was gay one night when we were making some things out of Clay.

John Dehlin [03:35:27] And

Tina Beard [03:35:30] I, I support him in that. You know, I have no issues whatsoever. And so I, it breaks my heart that he feels like he can't be happy and he has to choose one or the other. And if he chooses to stay in the church, he can't have a relationship and be with somebody that he loves. And it's just, it doesn't make sense. And it's so hard to watch Zayn be in that position where he has to advise him on what he needs to do according to the church doctrine. It's just very uncomfortable.

John Dehlin [03:36:23] And what about his choice of, you know, what, what do you feel? Do you have a desire to get up in fast and testimony meeting and bear your own testimony? And do you have thoughts about his decision to not blow up the Word versus you know, you've been non believing longer. Maybe you've been hurt more by the church than him. Maybe the church was made for people like him and me. Maybe you've been harmed more. How do you feel? Do you feel any differently about what the right way for you guys to step down is?

Tina Beard [03:36:59] I don't feel like any kind of confrontation is the right way simply because the way the church is set up. If you go against the church, you're the problem, not the church. You're. There's something wrong with you. And so creating any kind of conflict

Margi Dehlin [03:37:20] or

Tina Beard [03:37:23] disruption to the harmony of the church isn't going to benefit anyone. It's not going to benefit me or Zayn or anyone in the congregation. It's going to make it more uncomfortable and it's going to. At the end of the day, we will be the ones that look crazy. We will be the ones that are deemed out of control and apostate and all those things. So there's no, there's a, it's a no win situation. And so the best thing for us to do is simply Slide away. We don't want to get involved in the congregation where we are moving. And we know so many people up there, and we know that as a result of our decision, they're not going to want their children to associate with our children. We're not going to be invited to social things. We know this, and it's okay, because we're excited to start our own friendship groups that are based on friendship, not on a common belief or not on us living a certain way. So I think. I don't. I don't even want to talk to anyone about it. That is true believing, because I've tried in the past, and it's like talking to a brick wall. People just say, oh, but you've had so many experiences, or maybe you need to pray harder, or maybe you need to try this. Are you doing this, this and this, you know, are you not checking all these boxes off? I've tried when I was struggling before. I've tried to share my concerns. And the only position that true believing Mormons take is we need to help you. We need to help you get back on track because you're off track. You've let go of the iron rod.

John Dehlin [03:39:32] I've got Stephen Hasson's bite model in my brain because he's, you know, he's the cult expert. He was here all last week. And there's a few red flags coming up in my mind. One is doctrine over individual, which is this. LGBT teachings over the benefit of the individual. That's a theme that just came up. This idea that no matter what you tell a member, they're not open or willing to learning new information. That's. That's the sign of an unhealthy organization. The fact that you just said that you would lose all your friends and family if you left the church, that's the sign of a cultured, unhealthy organization. And, and the sign that. That you would be afraid of the consequences of announcing publicly you're leaving, and so you want to keep it quiet and that you can't leave with your dignity intact. That's another rule of a cult, is there's no honorable way to leave. And I don't mean to be parroting all that, but I think we need to become more literate in the. The tenets of. Of culture, unhealthy religions, even if we're believing faithful Mormons, because it would. I would think that we would all want to make the Mormon Church believer and ex Mormon. We would all want the Mormon Church to be less Scientology, like Less Jehovah's Witness, like, less flds, like. And the only way that's going to happen is if we, is if we develop literacy on how cults wield undo influence. How do you guys feel about that?

Tina Beard [03:41:14] I agree completely. There's no position for you to be in the middle. You're in or you're out. There's no, I'm gonna, you know, just go every now and then like a Baptist church. It's just, it's impossible.

Zane Beard [03:41:34] Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm a little bit more optimistic. A, I think. I, I, I'm, I think I'm hoping that our friends are still our friends because I want to still be their friends. I'm hoping that. I don't know what's going to happen though. I'm scared about that. I think the church needs to, the people in the church need to make a lot more room for people that leave the faith and not look down. But you know, because it's, it's the fundamental teachings of the Savior anyway. Like, it's what we believe. It's what we should be believing. So, yeah, I think it's gotta, I think it will move that direction. It just has to be because it's got no choice. I think that's just going to be the case. I hope, I'd love to. You know, one of the most enlightening experiences from our ward council was hearing from an ex Mormon. Their experience, maybe in general conference one day we'll have someone share how, someone that left the church, sharing how hard it was for them and helping people understand that, you know, that, that we could be better at that. Maybe that's when we'll know the church is really serious about it loving everyone, you know, and, but we're still, we're still got a while ago, I think Tina's, you know, like, we're worried about Tina's family, but we love them and they love us. We know they love us. They love the church too, and we respect that. We're not going to be trying to get them out of the church. We know it's going to be awkward conversations. It's going to be hard.

Tina Beard [03:43:05] But I think that's where you say we love and respect them. I think that's where the problem is. The level of respect is not there when you no longer have the same belief systems. And so it's not, it's not respect. You're, you almost go down a notch.

Zane Beard [03:43:23] Yeah. In people's view, you definitely do, unfortunately.

Margi Dehlin [03:43:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:43:32] You know, Zayn, you're the second currently serving Mormon bishop to appear on Mormon Stories within the past month. Should the church be worried about its future? If active Mormon bishops, stake Presidency members, stake head councilmen, Relief Society presidents, young women's leaders, currently serving missionaries, they're all listening to Mormon Stories podcast. Do you think the church should be worried?

Zane Beard [03:44:02] Definitely. I think why it should be worried is the church is in a really tough spot because you've got really problematic church history that you can't. There's not an answer for. I've searched for those answers like I, I have no reason to leave in the sense that I, I was happy to go without Tina as a true believe in moment. Since having the faith crisis, I've fasted and prayed to stay to have some. I said to Tina if I just, if I get some very impress like amazing spiritual experience, I'll forget it all. I'll stay and I'll be and I've been praying for that, for us in experience to keep me there, for the Spirit to help me. It's not, it's not doing that. And that's what the church really has to really worry about in the end is there's people like myself who love the Lord and, and that are prayerful and, and obedient and loving and trying to want to stay but can't be honest with themselves too. And the, the how they experience it first is not a wave of members going on Mormon Stories even though there's obviously been 1700 of them. But it will be the apathy. It'll be people that will be there in their mind but not in their heart. And they won't be serving as diligently. I think they've already seen that. I think that's been the change to ministering. I think the change to the two hour block is they've seen not just, not, not people so much leaving in droves, which I, I'm sure that they are. But there's people that are silent quitting, you know, that are going but not, not really there. And that's what will be the first bit. And then I think it will get worse over time. What I really pray and hope for and this is going to sound crazy but I'm, I'm a currently serving bishop and I'm coming and I'm sharing my thoughts and feelings and there's been lots of former bishops. Come on. But what I really feel John needs to happen is I'm calling on an apostle. I want an apostle to come on Mormon Stories who has. Because I think what the church really needs, like, what the church members really need is one of the brethren who, I think there's a, one of the brethren there, one of the top 15 who know it's not true and who are there just out of. They found their way up to the most senior leaders of the church. They know that Christ isn't coming visiting them. They know the problems, they know the history, they know it's not true, but they cannot, they're feeling like they can't get out of this. They are too far in. And I think what we need is we need one of them to do what is right and come and be on the podcast and share the story and to get this enough traction to get out of just the local, like to get people that are just searching the Internet with doubts to the general audience around the world. I think it needs to be someone that big needs to, I would say, like, join the rebellion, you know, But I don't, I don't want to sound like that, but to, to defend truth, to really make a difference on the world, to, to do, you know, if they're an apostle of the Lord that really wants to change the world, then share then, then get on and share that honesty. And, and it might mean they have to leave the church like we're going to, it might mean they've got to give up everything. But I think I, I'm, I, I, I think we're going to see a day where that will happen, and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to, from the sidelines, seeing the church change on LGBT issues and all those things. But I don't know what got me on that tangent, but that I'd ask

John Dehlin [03:47:42] you if the church is in trouble.

Zane Beard [03:47:44] It is. Yeah. Like, it's, it's the church in Australia.

John Dehlin [03:47:48] How's the church in Australia?

Zane Beard [03:47:51] Well, we've lost probably 15 in the last three or four years. 15 what, members from our war, from our ward.

Tina Beard [03:47:58] Yeah.

Zane Beard [03:47:59] You know, and if you keep doing that every, you know, like, that's, you know, over time, that, that, that's, that's their kids and their grandkids and their grandkids. Grandkids, you know, all that. And, and, but the church is, the church is in trouble because not just people leaving, but it's people like Tina who will stay for, for a long time but not, not believe. And if their mission really is to, you know, for people to live the gospel and, and be all committed, they're failing at that because so many people are like, for Every person that goes on Mormon Stories podcast, there's probably 10,000 that I've either left the church in another hundred thousand that may be there, but not believing, you know, So I don't know. It's. It's. I think it's. I think it's in trouble. I don't think that in like five years time, you're going to see half the church membership leave. I don't. It's not like that sort of thing because so many of the members don't. They just got their head in the sand, you know, as well. But it's losing good people, and it's going to continue to do that. And if I was in church headquarters right now and they're going, what do we do about that? I don't think there's a lot, unfortunately, that can. If I was them, I'd just want to have complete do. Be honest and be kind and loving and make the corrections and do what's right. Let the consequence follow.

Tina Beard [03:49:24] Is that a song?

Zane Beard [03:49:25] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:49:26] Wait, what were you gonna say? Tina?

Tina Beard [03:49:29] I think the church is in trouble because the generations, our children's generation, just will not tolerate the stance on gay marriage. They will not tolerate the racism.

Zane Beard [03:49:43] Transgender.

Tina Beard [03:49:44] Transgender. They just will not tolerate it. What? Our son was in a class in primary where they said, we're talking about gay marriage and being gay. And they had said, you know, they can't get married in the temple, and they will basically go to the lowest heaven, the telestial kingdom. And our son came home completely disturbed. He was eight at the time. So upset.

Margi Dehlin [03:50:14] Just.

Tina Beard [03:50:14] It really hurt his heart that he said, why would God do that? Why would God stop people marrying people they love? And at the time, he said, well, my mum and dad said, it's fine, so.

Zane Beard [03:50:32] And that was bishop. I was bishop. And I told my daughter that. She came to me and I told her, hey, between you and. I believe in gay marriage. And I. I really hope the church changes its view on that. But we. They're just. They're just like any other kids their age. They are so more socially aware, and

Tina Beard [03:50:47] the expectation for them to serve missions and things like that, I just don't think that they will be signing up for that kind of stuff anymore. I. I just think the generation is so much more aware of spirituality and themselves, and I just don't think, yeah, they will.

Women's Roles, Church Discipline, and Looking Ahead

John Dehlin [03:51:09] I have one quick question. I know Margi's wanting to ask a question, too. Tina. It's, you know, it's so common for women to always go last. Like, we Fought for racial equality. You know, the church changed in 78. You know, the. The LGBT stuff is all top of mind right now within Mormonism and in broader culture. I would love to, you know, but we forget about women. I would love to hear your. If. Let's just say church headquarters is. Oh, wow. A currently serving bishop and his wife no longer believe, and they're going on Mormon stories. And if they're listening. Tina, do you want to explain to them how they might be hurting women and what changes they need to make for women?

Tina Beard [03:51:58] That's a really big question. First of all, I. I really believe that women have not been given the voice that they deserve for so many years and continue to be put to the side and not valued. And so I believe that women should have more opportunities for power. And I'm not saying, oh, Relief Society president should have more air time in award council. No, I mean they should have more opportunities to infiltrate the whole system from the top. They should be given positions of power, because had women been given positions of power, so many things would have been different for so many people. The church would function in such a better way. It would have a better flow. I just think that the women need to be looked to for advice, for guidance, for direction on big decisions, because we are. Women are the powerhouse at the end of the day. And I don't want to get on my soapbox and be a big feminist here, but the longer you oppress women, the harder it's going to be for the church. And those changes have to be made from the top.

John Dehlin [03:53:32] That's beautiful. And the frame was still kind of how the church could help itself and how it's hurting itself by not including women. Is there anything you just want to summarize in terms of how the. How you feel the church hurt you and how you feel like it might be hurting other women similar to you?

Tina Beard [03:53:54] I guess I. I don't want to feel like a victim. I really don't. But I do feel that within this system, there is no value. It is almost a false celebration around women. Historically. This was one of my first things that I had said to Zayn. If our whole life is to have children and go to the celestial kingdom, and then if the doctrine is that we then create worlds, Zayn then is prayed to as heavenly Father, and there is no mention of me anywhere. There is no celebration of women and the work that we do to raise children, to be emotionally in tune with everything that happens in a home and in a family. And essentially, that is our world right Our families are our world. And so I guess I feel sad that I haven't had the opportunities that I would have liked to have had because of a culture that encourages women, that staying at home is the pinnacle of joy. I feel sad that there's an expectation that I should be okay, that my husband spends a lot of his time thinking about everybody else's needs. And, you know, the expectation is that I should carry on, put my shoulder to the wheel, keep going, when this is supposed to be a partnership. And that. That's hurtful. That's hurtful. And I don't think that. Sorry, honey. I'm not putting you down here.

Zane Beard [03:56:00] That's right.

Tina Beard [03:56:04] I. I just think that culturally, this has been the narrative for women for years and years and years. And so it's not just Tina, it's. Women have been swept to the side for years.

John Dehlin [03:56:25] Powerful. Thank you, Margi.

Tina Beard [03:56:28] I. Sorry, I just want to clarify. My husband is a fabulous husband. I just want to clarify. He's an incredible dad and a great husband, and it's also a testament to how loyal and how seriously he takes his responsibilities. He loves the youth, and he has served so diligently because he cares about people and. And his love of people is what has made him an incredible person in the position as a bishop. And he has touched so many people's lives. And whether or not that is inspired of God, I don't know. But I do know that he is unique and talented and such a special person that he. These. These people that have been able to work with him, I feel have been really lucky.

Margi Dehlin [03:57:30] Yeah. I just had a quick question. I feel like in your story, we've talked a little bit about some of the wounds that came about through gender. Gender roles, the disconnect that, you know, grew out of a structure that really reinforced gender roles and even prescribed gender roles. Am I. So my question is around healing and you two moving forward now in. Is there something that excites you in the days ahead in your own healing, in creating a partnership now of your own making, reflecting now your values as opposed to a system's values.

Tina Beard [03:58:15] Something that I started to look into was Tiffany Rose, the lds. What do you call that? Recovery, I guess faith transition course. So I did that faith transition course, and something she recommends in there is to sit down as a family and write down your values and what you want to have as part of your family values. And I'm excited to sit down with our family and write down what we want our family to look like, what we want, what we value as a family what we feel is important to us because we are a family unit, not because we've been told this should be important. This is the role that Tina should have. This is the role that Zane should have.

Zane Beard [03:59:12] I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm actually really excited because on the gender roles thing, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm so excited to see Tina's business taking off and I would happily step back and support her. I'm happy to get time back. I'm happy to spend Sundays together. I'm happy for us to. Like, there's so many things that we said we would never do because of the religion we're in that we can talk about not breaking, like being really disobedient, but never gone for a walk, take on for a swim on Sunday with our kids at the beach or something. Like, you know, just there's things that we excited about planning for the future and making friends. And we don't care if they drink alcohol, you know, like making, making friends with anyone. I said to Tina, I feel like we were my dog.

Tina Beard [04:00:06] Sorry.

Zane Beard [04:00:06] We, we felt like we used to see in black and white, but now we see in color, you know, and that's, that's how I see our relationship. It's been more unified. Like, it's been really unifying to go on this journey together. It's been really unifying to plan for the future. It's been unifying to see where as a husband, I missed the mark, you know, but, and, and I'm not putting it all on the church too, you know, like the, there's the church culture, but, you know, like, I've been ordinary sometimes and, and so am I. Yeah.

Tina Beard [04:00:41] That's not, let's not paint the picture that I'm.

Zane Beard [04:00:43] Girl, you have been 100. She has been too. And so all those things, we're still going to have troubles in life. We're still gonna have challenges in our marriage. We're still going to be having kids that require a lot of help, but we're going to move forward.

John Dehlin [04:01:01] Zane and Tina, maybe one, one final question. I'm just curious. And we hope to have you back if you want to come back after and give us a follow up as to how things all shake out. But do you anticipate that you'll remain members? Will you attend? Will you continue attending? Do you anticipate potentially resigning your membership or not? And are you in any way worried about church discipline for, you know, coming on Mormon stories and telling your story while you're a bishop.

Tina Beard [04:01:40] Do you want to answer that?

Zane Beard [04:01:42] Okay. Well, I have thought a lot about this because can I continue to go even though I don't believe in the truth claims? Right. Like, is it still a good place for me and my family? And part of the thing that really got to a challenging point on that for me was I don't, I know if I do that, that my kids are going to be raised in the church and that they're going to be true believing, you know, and that they're going to feel this pressure to believe all these things and to go on missions and believe in a prophet that was, you know, a fraud. And I would be happy. I, I think I, I'm not too much worried about going on Sundays and sitting in the priesthood meetings and doing that. But I don't want, I don't want my kids to be raised in the church. That's such, we were talking about this. That's such a weird thing to say now, but I want to free them from that and to be able to make their own now. If they want to go to church, we're going to be supportive. They may still go to youth activities. I don't, so I don't think we're going to go. I, I'm, you know, when we talk about validity versus utility type members of the church, I'm more of a validity type. It's not, if it's not true, then the utility in it, it's not enough for me, you know, I, I, the truth, the truthfulness is what kept me there. When it was hard, when it was challenging, when it was leaders doing the wrong thing or whatever, it was true, so you put up with it. But now, because that's gone, for me, the utility is not enough because there's a lot of utility I can get elsewhere and I'm excited about now. Would I. Does that mean I will never come back? I don't think I will. But if, if I do, maybe I'm still, I'm not jumping at my bits to go break commandments. I still, I still pray. I've been, I even prayed last night talking to God, you know, I still want to be a good person, still want to help, but I don't, I don't see that. Am I worried about church discipline? I'm not, Maybe I should be, but I'm not, I'm not going to resign my membership if I got visited every single day, you know, and people popping around all the time and not giving us a break. Yeah, sure. But I think I'll be fairly honest with people and like, talk about that. We've got a big shaggy dog coming in. But I. So maybe I should be, you know, like, I know that I think if I was stayed as a bishop and this got released, I know something would. I'd be at least released. Maybe church discipline or whatever would come by that. But I. By the time this comes out, I think we would be probably not attending our new ward and so may I get a visit? Yeah. Happy to talk about. Happy to talk about all these things with the new state president. Happy to be convinced otherwise. I. I still would wish that there was some mental gymnastics way that goes, yep, that's the answer. That's that way back. I don't think that will ever come. Otherwise it would have been obvious for me and thousands of others, you know. Was there anything else of that question that I'm missing?

John Dehlin [04:04:59] No. Tina, did you want to answer that question? Yeah.

Tina Beard [04:05:03] Do I want to stay in the church? No. It. It's not benefiting me. It's not bringing me joy and happiness that it's supposed to bring. It's not supporting my children and helping my children to be happy either. I feel like I can get community in so many different places, and that was kind of the one thing that was. I was holding on to is, what about my community? What am I going to do? I. I feel like I can make a community from school, from sporting commitments. You know, there's community to be found in so many places. And am I worried about disciplinary action? No. And if that is something that comes our way, it doesn't affect me. You know, excommunicating me isn't going to hurt me because I don't believe the system is right.

Zane Beard [04:06:05] So it would hurt me because it's. I hate the message that it sends to someone, you know, like, it's just barbaric to do that. I'm sorry that happened to you, John. Sorry that's happened to so many. You know, for someone to express genuine doubt and concerns, that loves people, that's trying their best, that's praying, doing all the things to share their story and get excommunicated for it, you know, that would be crazy.

Tina Beard [04:06:33] That seems very unchristlike.

Margi Dehlin [04:06:35] Yeah.

Zane Beard [04:06:36] It just doesn't seem right now. Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:06:40] And.

Zane Beard [04:06:40] And we don't. We don't plan to go on, get on soapbox and try to get people to leave the church. We still with. The reason for us for doing this isn't to get people to leave the church. It's to share Our story and people that going through the same can find comfort that they're not. That they're not alone, you know, and you're not crazy. You're not crazy. And if people, people choose to stay, great. If it's working for you, go for it. Be the best. Be the Pope of Mormonism. But it doesn't work for me, unfortunately. But still super curious about the culture, super curious about the church. I'll probably follow it for the rest of my life. Like, like follow on from the sidelines and listening and be there for friends in faith crisis. Be there for those that are called as bishop. Share any insights I can. Probably won't be welcomed, you know, but. Yeah, but not, not, not afraid of the church, because I think that would be silly.

Tina Beard [04:07:45] I'm most afraid of hurting my parents. That is why. That's where my fear is, is in just hurting my parents.

John Dehlin [04:07:54] Yeah. Well, maybe the episode should be Zayn. The Pope of Mormonism abdicates his throne.

Tina Beard [04:08:04] Yes.

Zane Beard [04:08:05] Yes, please. That is so embarrassing.

Tina Beard [04:08:08] That's hilarious.

Margi Dehlin [04:08:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:08:10] No, I don't think our viewers and listeners have any idea how courageous what you both did just today. Zane and Tina, not only the fact that you're willing to come on warmer stories and share your stories, but to do it, you know, as an actively serving bishop and bishop's wife, when you haven't even come out to your kids or family yet. I just want to say what you did today was incredibly courageous and I know it's going to help a lot. A lot of people. Do you want to add anything?

Margi Dehlin [04:08:42] Yeah. And just incredibly generous and loving, really, to give this offering.

John Dehlin [04:08:49] So thanks. Thank you so much.

Zane Beard [04:08:52] Thank you.

Tina Beard [04:08:53] It's been a pleasure to meet you guys and chat.

Zane Beard [04:08:56] Yeah, Maybe again sometime. We'll see.

John Dehlin [04:09:01] Well, we'd love to have you back if, if you feel moved to kind of share with us what the after story. We'd love to hear.

Zane Beard [04:09:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:09:07] I joked with Margi that we need Australia thrive, but I'm not gonna announce or commit to that now. But with all the stuff going on. What's that?

Tina Beard [04:09:17] He's your guy.

Zane Beard [04:09:18] She. She doesn't want me to go from like one the Bishop of the Ex Moms to the Bishop of the.

Margi Dehlin [04:09:24] To the Australian Prize. Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:09:28] Well, with Simon. With Simon Southerton and Neville Rockow and with all. With. With Tawny Berlo and all the news going on in Australia about the taxes and fraud and all that, it just seems like Australia is hopping.

Zane Beard [04:09:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tina Beard [04:09:47] More to come on that, I think.

Zane Beard [04:09:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:09:51] All right. Well, Zane and Tina Beard. Bishop Beard and Tina. Thank you for coming on Mormon Stories. Thanks for sharing your lovely story. Thanks for your courage and your integrity and your honesty. And you're balancing your honesty and your integrity with compassion, which I think is the healthiest way to view values. Instead of just banging on one value like integrity, you're balancing that. You're trying to balance that with the benefit of your family, with your loved ones, and with the ward members whom you love. And I find that deeply admirable.

Margi Dehlin [04:10:31] Yeah, I do as well.

Tina Beard [04:10:33] Thanks. Thank you, guys.

Margi Dehlin [04:10:35] Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:10:35] Thanks, you guys. And thanks for giving us four and a half hours on your Sabbath.

Zane Beard [04:10:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:10:41] And you Woke up at 6. You started at 6am so thank you.

Margi Dehlin [04:10:45] It's a lot. A lot. We're grateful.

John Dehlin [04:10:47] The light coming out of the. The window behind you looks a lot different than when we started.

Zane Beard [04:10:52] It's. It's come up. That's it.

John Dehlin [04:10:54] There's a lot more light in the room.

Zane Beard [04:10:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:10:56] All right. We hope to meet you guys in person someday.

Tina Beard [04:10:59] We'd love that. Thank you, guys.

Zane Beard [04:11:01] Thanks a lot.

John Dehlin [04:11:02] Keep up the good work. Stay in touch.

Zane Beard [04:11:04] All right.

Margi Dehlin [04:11:04] See you.

John Dehlin [04:11:05] Thanks, guys.

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