Introducing Thomas and Sierra Stokes

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 1485

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 27, 2021, and today we are broadcasting and live streaming from the Mormon Stories Podcast studios here in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I'm really excited for today's episode. Super excited. Today we are interviewing Thomas and Cece Stokes. Hey, guys. Welcome to the studio.

Thomas Stokes [00:00:25] Hey, good to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:26] How's it going?

Thomas Stokes [00:00:27] Pretty good.

Sierra Stokes [00:00:28] Going very good, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Good to have you.

Thomas Stokes [00:00:30] Thanks.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] You guys may be wondering, who are these people? So basically, one of the ways that we find people to interview on Mormon Stories podcast these days is through TikTok. It's not the only way, but it's one of the ways. And the other day I was kind of browsing through Mormon and ex Mormon TikTok and I saw this darling TikTok of Thomas and Cece singing and dancing and announcing maybe a couple new songs that Thomas has released as a musician. So I reached out to them, they were interested and what I thought would be super fun to do. Today's episode is around the idea of healing through a Mormon faith crisis through music. Because Thomas Stokes is a musician and he is recently releasing an ep, which I learn is a sort of like a small album of like two or three songs. And so what I thought would be really fun to do something, we did this with Jesse Funk a little bit. We've done this in the past with like Sarah Sample or Angela. So for others is to have a musician on who can interweave some of the songs into the epic multi hour Mormon Stories podcast episode. So this episode would stand on its own because Thomas and Cece have their own, their own really cool story about both being raised in different ways in the Mormon faith. Thomas serving a mission and then Cece maybe, you know, being a less orthodox Mormon growing up as a Mormon teen. And then them finding each other, falling in love, but also early in their relationship, Thomas having to do deal with some questions or struggles about the faith while he's at byu. And then them dealing with their marriage and do they get married in the temple. How do they manage Thomas's faith crisis? And then there's a mixed faith element in this story, and then there's kind of the faith crisis full on and how they resolved it all accompanied by fun, interesting, cool music to help tell the story. So that's what we are doing today. We are live streaming and we welcome all you guys on the YouTube channel for those of you who can join us here. So, yeah, that's what you're in store for today, and it's going to be really good. So, Thomas and cece, what did I leave out?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:36] I think you nailed everything. That was pretty good.

Sierra Stokes [00:02:38] That covers it. Yeah. Yeah, let's.

Thomas Stokes [00:02:40] Let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:02:41] Should we do it?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:42] Let's go.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] All right, here we are. And it's time to jump in. I mean, is there anything you want to say at the outset about your music or your TikTok or any of that?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:51] I just want to say that I did not imagine that my TikTok would grow like it did. The Exmoron community is so awesome. Love you guys.

Sierra Stokes [00:03:03] Very supportive.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:04] Very supportive. You all know who you are, and so thank you for this opportunity.

John Dehlin [00:03:08] What's your TikTok?

Thomas Stokes [00:03:09] My TikTok is big crick music.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] Okay. And you've been doing songs there for a while, right?

Thomas Stokes [00:03:15] Yeah, I started in, I want to say, last October, I. I started doing hymn parodies, which I was very scared to do.

John Dehlin [00:03:25] I remember those. I remember those. And. And it's kind of grown from there.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:29] Yeah. I've done some other content on there as well, but, yeah, it took off.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] Big Crick music.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:34] Yeah.

Thomas's Mormon Upbringing and Family Life

John Dehlin [00:03:35] All right. Okay. So let's see. Let's start with Thomas, your Mormon story.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:40] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] And what we'll do is we'll bounce back and forth. So we'll do Thomas, then we'll do cece, and bounce back and forth during different kind of timelines. We'll have parallel timelines until the timelines merge.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:51] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] Okay. So, Thomas, where does your Mormon story begin?

Thomas Stokes [00:03:55] I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Kind of a weird place for a Mormon to be born, but it's because my dad was in the Air Force. He was a pilot. He flew a 10s. I don't know if you're familiar with that airplane. It's pretty cool.

John Dehlin [00:04:09] Is that a cargo plane?

Thomas Stokes [00:04:11] It's a. It's a close air support. It means it kills tanks and things on the ground.

Sierra Stokes [00:04:19] Flies close to the ground.

Thomas Stokes [00:04:20] Flies super close to the ground.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] Oh, wow.

Thomas Stokes [00:04:21] And, yeah, so that was his job for, I want to say, 25. No, 27 years. He was. Yeah. So growing up, we. We moved around a ton. I was born in Fayetteville, but I've been all over the country as well as some cool places outside of the country as well. So that definitely played a huge factor in the way I was raised. Always changing. You had to be ready to adapt, make new friends, be social. It was a lot of people when I tell them that, they're like, oh, that Must be so hard. But for me it was. Honestly, I love being an Air Force brat.

Sierra Stokes [00:05:04] I loved moving and I feel like it played into. It played into, like he said, having to adapt. I think that was really good because a lot of the times you'll find, especially in Utah, there's definitely this bubble, right? And people, if you're born and raised, you don't leave that bubble. That bubble never pops. So I think what kept Thomas, obviously he's a TBM and we'll get into that, but all through his childhood he was very relaxed and accepting of other people and because that's how he needed to make friends, was to not be in that bubble. Because, I mean, I don't want to take away from you here, but Mormonism wasn't like the biggest religion that he experienced outside of his family. As far as friends.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:51] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:05:51] Would you agree?

Thomas Stokes [00:05:52] Oh, very much so, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] So let's paint. I always like to paint kind of the Mormon picture. So it's military family. Your dad's a pilot in the Air Force, right?

Thomas Stokes [00:06:01] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:01] And, and so, and you're moving around a lot. So what was the Mormon environment like in your many siblings? Was there family meeting? Was there scripture study? Were your parents devout? Were they strict? Was it laxed? Paint them, you know, from like age 0 to like age 12. Paint, paint the picture of how Mormonism shaped your family.

Thomas Stokes [00:06:22] It was about as ideal as it could, as it could have been. We did family prayers every night, even a lot of mornings. We did family prayers as well. Family scripture study every night, family home evening. And this is all with my dad having a high demanding job, like he wouldn't always be home, but we, we made it work. They were strict, but I never felt like, you know, I was oppressed or anything. I was super happy. I was okay with the way they were raising me and many, many ways still am. I think they, they're amazing parents and I love them very much. We are a tight knit family. And not only were we a tight knit family, but the Air Force combined with the church makes it an even tighter community. Everyone, wherever we went, our wards were always really close because we were all going through the same thing. A lot of times the military families tend to be in the same wards because they live all like on base or all kind of in the same area. So the Air Force and Mormon community is very close. Like I said, it was super ideal scriptures. Let's see if I'm forgetting anything. We never, ever missed church. I, you know, very rarely. If we were traveling, maybe we Missed it. Kept the Sabbath day holy. We never bought on Sundays. We never went anywhere, like, as. As perfect as we could have been without being, like, super crazy about it. We weren't. I wouldn't call us extreme or anything. We were just. We just did what we were supposed to.

John Dehlin [00:08:00] Okay. And was it fun?

Thomas Stokes [00:08:03] For the most part, yeah. I. I had a good experience in the church, which I'm grateful that I didn't have to go through anything too traumatic, directly related with the church, but I know that's kind of. That's a privilege. I. I was. I was lucky to not have to deal with anything too bad. But, yeah, I loved it. I loved the church. I was all in.

John Dehlin [00:08:25] What were your favorite parts of being a Mormon growing up as a kid?

Thomas Stokes [00:08:30] I loved the uniqueness of it. I felt like, you know, the whole choice generation, it was special to me. I felt special. It was good. It was good knowing that we had the truth, you know, that I knew exactly where I was gonna go when

John Dehlin [00:08:45] I got of the truth. That were really important.

Thomas Stokes [00:08:48] Eternal families was huge.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] Your family would last forever.

Thomas Stokes [00:08:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:52] There's other people's wouldn't, but yours would. Is that right?

Thomas Stokes [00:08:56] Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, there's actually. That just brought a memory up of primary songs, like, were huge for me because from an early age, I was into music and I had my. One of my favorite ones was Families Can Be Together Forever. One of my favorite ones. I had many, and my dad always, to this day, will. Will always bring up the way I sang it. At the very end, I had a little. I couldn't say my R's. And I would always say, the Lord has shown me how I can. And. And that, like, even though that's just a funny story that we even bring up to this day, that dynamic just resonated with me throughout my whole life. Like this. This song means everything to me. The church means everything to me. And I loved it. I felt unique. I felt like God, you know, loved me. Other favorite primary songs, When I'm Baptized. Big one. The Nephi.

John Dehlin [00:09:55] What you like? What do you like about those?

Thomas Stokes [00:09:56] The. The. The melody of. Of. Of When I'm Baptized is beautiful. It's so good.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] When Jesus Christ was. No, wait.

Guest [00:10:04] I love to look for rainbows whenever there is rain.

Sierra Stokes [00:10:08] Yeah, that's a crowd favorite.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:10] That is a crowd favorite.

John Dehlin [00:10:10] Everyone says that.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:12] It's a really pretty melody. And then Nephi's courage. That was a big one.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] Well, sing that one.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:18] The Lord commanded Nephi to go and get the plates from the wicked Laban outside the city gates.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] Laman and Lemuel were both afraid to try, But Nephi was courageous. This was his reply.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:33] He's still going. Okay, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] He chops Laban's heads off. Laban's head.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:37] Oh, yeah, yeah. Totally fine. We'll just omit that.

Sierra Stokes [00:10:39] It's a good childhood story even.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:41] I was always like, super kind of gung ho, um, and kind of a class clown. I've. I feel like I've chilled out. But, like, during primary, I was so intense singing that song. At the end, it would be like, I know the Lord commands the way he wants me to obey. Yeah. And I'd like, do.

Guest [00:10:55] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:10:56] And I'd like. In the middle of primary, I'd be like, super animated and. And like. Yeah, I was. I was very scripture, that one. Actually, I didn't. I didn't sing that one until I was older. Is that an old. A newer one?

John Dehlin [00:11:09] I thought it. I don't know.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:11] I think it's newer because I didn't hear that one until we were in Korea and. And I was a little older, but I still liked it, you know, because everyone knows. Yeah. Classic.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] All right. Yeah, man. I. The, the primary songs were huge for me.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:27] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:11:27] And they still are. Like, I. I'm sure I can sing 50 of them and love them all.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:31] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:11:31] And I think your TikTok really. We were shocked by how many people. The most therapeutic hymns that he would make parodies out of were the primary songs because people just held them so close to their heart their entire lives, and then all of a sudden it wasn't true. And you realized that you were taught from a very young age this, like, indoctrination. And so, yeah, the. The primary songs are a really big hit on Thomas's Tick Tock because everybody's like, thank you for rewriting this so that it can still be special to me. But, you know, it's not without the brainwashing. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:06] So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So what else about your upbringing?

Music, Faith, and Early Church Experiences

Thomas Stokes [00:12:13] Let's see. Am I missing something? I think music. Going back to music. I started piano at 7, quickly picked up the bass about a year later. Music was always very important to me.

John Dehlin [00:12:29] At what age you pick up the bass?

Thomas Stokes [00:12:31] 8.

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Whoa, you're playing bass guitar at age.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:33] It was literally taller than me. What made you.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] Oh, so like a stand up bass?

Guest [00:12:37] No, no.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:37] Electric guitar. I was short. I still am.

John Dehlin [00:12:39] So a bass. Guit.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:40] Bass guitar. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:41] What would make it. So were you into, like, rock music? What would make an 8 year old. Want to play the bass guitar, of all things.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:46] My brother, he played the guitar, and so he was like, dude, we got to start a band. You got to choose your instrument. And he was like, 8 years old. He was 13, and I was 8. And I wanted to play the drums at first, but then I don't know what made me change my mind, but I changed my mind, wanted to play the bass. And so my brother, who. Me and him still play music together, and he's pretty good at the guitar, and he's got a great voice. And so we've always. Me and him have always been very close. And the music. He's the one that got me into rock. He introduced me to Weezer when I

John Dehlin [00:13:17] was, like, seven and just like, 90s rock, basically.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:21] Yeah, yeah. 90s rock. And our taste in music has evolved a little bit more since then. But I remember just jamming out to Weezer with him from a very early age. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:34] Playing bass.

Sierra Stokes [00:13:34] And you just kept going from there.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:36] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:13:37] You're very musically inclined.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:38] Thank you.

Sierra Stokes [00:13:41] I like to brag on you. You are.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] Okay. So you're playing piano.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:46] You say piano and bass. Later on, I picked up the trombone because of 101 Dalmatians. I don't know if you remember that scene when he's playing the trombone upstairs. And then. So I wanted to play trombone, and then I was like, wait, well, why don't I learn how to play the drums and the trumpet and the. I was in marching band in ninth grade. I played the melophone. Picked up the ukulele.

Sierra Stokes [00:14:08] Penny whistle.

Thomas Stokes [00:14:09] The penny whistle.

John Dehlin [00:14:10] This reminds me of Prince. I don't know if you've ever heard of Prince. I'm super old. But Prince played, like, 15 instruments or 20.

Thomas Stokes [00:14:16] He was probably a lot better at all those instruments than I am. I just dabble in most of those, but I play the guitar and piano mostly.

Sierra Stokes [00:14:23] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:14:23] I would say. All right.

John Dehlin [00:14:24] So church and music.

Thomas Stokes [00:14:26] Church and music. Huge. I would say that took up most of my life all the way up till, honestly, like, high school. My life just revolved around the church and music. There were a few. I don't know if you want to. Want to hear about any negative things that I had with the church.

John Dehlin [00:14:46] Yeah, good and bad.

Thomas Stokes [00:14:46] Yeah, good and bad. Okay. Yeah. Honestly.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] Let's follow the timeline. Like, it's. Sometimes we want to jump ahead and talk about how we think about things now or, like, looking back. Let's not do that. Let's just follow the timeline as if you're in that experience as you're telling the story?

Thomas Stokes [00:15:02] Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:15:03] Okay.

Guest [00:15:03] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:15:04] So I was very devout in the church, But I, like CeCe said, being outside of the Mormon bubble, I tried to stay away from being that weird Mormon kid. And so I tried to be very normal, but that often led to me kind of wanting to hide my beliefs from my friends. Not a ton, but it definitely happened. I remember in seventh grade, I was embarrassed to tell one of my best friends about the first vision. He asked about it even, and he was like, so, you know, how did this happen? And I was like, oh, well, this might sound kind of weird, but Joseph Smith, you know, he prayed in the woods and asked God what church was true. And then God appeared to him and he was like, really? And I was like, yeah, it's kind of weird, though. Don't worry about it. And I, you know, there were. There are moments like that throughout my upbringing where I didn't really want to share a ton.

Sierra Stokes [00:15:54] You had that self awareness that it

Thomas Stokes [00:15:55] was a little weird, it was a little out there. Um, and then, like, other things that happened to me. I was always trying to be good about my standards, but it was kind of hard because, for example, one time I was at a sleepover and everyone wanted to watch 300, the movie, which was rated R, and there's no way I was going to watch that. And There were like 12 kids there, and I was like, guys, we shouldn't watch that because it's rated R. And they're like, okay, we're going to watch it. And so I went in to the other room by myself and watched. Of all movies, I picked Rush Hour 3, which isn't even a very appropriate movie to begin with.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] You watched alone?

Thomas Stokes [00:16:37] I watched it alone. And then the host, big brother, came in and watched it with me. I think it was a pity watch. He felt bad for me because I was all alone. And so, yeah, yeah, I watched it alone because I was trying to be good, but it was kind of not a great experience for me.

John Dehlin [00:16:52] Those moments. I had moments like that. Those moments are, on the one hand, kind of isolating, and they make you sad and feel weird and awkward. Isn't there also a degree to which you kind of feel like you're being valiant?

Thomas Stokes [00:17:03] And it's like, yes, that is huge. I was like, I know, I know I'm gonna get blessed for this. You know, I know I'm doing the right thing. And so part of me was like, this sucks. But the other part of me was like, my dad would be so proud. And so, yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Where'd it go from there?

Thomas Stokes [00:17:21] Any other.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] You can hold the outline if it's easier for you to say.

Thomas Stokes [00:17:24] Oh, yeah, for sure. Any other experiences? Some other bad things that are bad experience. Hard things. I gave a Book of Mormon away to a kid.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] And around what grade?

Thomas Stokes [00:17:38] Ninth grade. I was in marching band. Now in high school, I was first.

John Dehlin [00:17:41] In what state you're still Georgia. Georgia. Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:17:43] I was in Georgia at this point. I was first chair march or in. In concert band. And the guy next to me, he was. We were talking and he was like, hey, like, what's up here? You're Mormon? I was like, yeah. I was like, do you want to book a Mormon? He goes, sure. So I went through all this tr. Trouble. I went and got a Book of Mormon. I was so excited. I was gonna do missionary work. And then he gave it back to me. I don't think he gave it back to me. I asked him about it and he was like, oh, it was garbage. And I was like, what? I was like, what do you mean? The fact that someone could think it was garbage.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] Do you think he read it?

Thomas Stokes [00:18:17] I don't know. I think he told me he read the first couple pages and he was garbage. And I was like, the fact that it. It would be garbage to someone, that it wouldn't resonate with someone was totally foreign to me. Completely foreign.

John Dehlin [00:18:29] And did it make you wonder about the church? Or did you just say, what a bad friend or what a bad guy?

Thomas Stokes [00:18:33] I was like, he must just not have the spirit. He just must have not had an open mind. And that's okay. I mean, everyone's different. That was the Bible Belt I experienced. A lot of people criticize the church in the Bible Belt, but that just strengthened my conviction.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, it is totally adversity in a high demand. Religion strengthens faith.

Thomas Stokes [00:18:55] Oh, we have stories about that. Another thing. I almost got a first girlfriend once in high school, but then she was like, I'm sorry, I don't date Mormons. I only date Christians. And that. That was a blow to my heart. I was like, no, we are Christians.

John Dehlin [00:19:12] That happened to me.

Guest [00:19:14] Did it really?

John Dehlin [00:19:15] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:19:16] It's.

Sierra Stokes [00:19:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:17] Did you? I'm Christian.

Thomas Stokes [00:19:18] Exactly.

Guest [00:19:19] And.

Thomas Stokes [00:19:19] And again, heartbreaking. But, yeah. But I felt reaffirmed, you know, I was like, it's okay. I'm doing this for God. It's a sacrifice. Probably wasn't going to marry her anyway, and it's fine. But I had experiences like that. Nothing like traumatizing or. Or like super, super negative. Just hard things that I, that I went through like any Mormon kid would, you know?

John Dehlin [00:19:44] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:19:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] Okay. So anything else about your high school years with faith, like seminary, your faith, your testimony. We always talk about if there was any shame that was part of that you want to talk about there?

High School Years and Seminary Life

Thomas Stokes [00:19:57] I was super good. I was as good as I could have been. We in seminary. I got up for early morning seminary and studied the scriptures all the time. I felt really good about that. This is actually an interesting concept that I'm sure we'll get into later. But there are actually a lot of memories that have been blocked in, in from before my mission that I. I don't remember. There's a lot of. There's a lot of empty space there that we can go into later. But I think it was because of some trauma that happened later on in life. But we'll get there, no worries. And do you want to talk about

John Dehlin [00:20:41] the military community at all?

Thomas Stokes [00:20:44] It was really cool when we did get the chance to live on base in Hawaii, in Korea. I graduated high school in Hawaii. I was in middle school in Korea. When we lived on base, it was a really tight knit community. My parents actually gave us a lot of freedom because we could just roam with our friends on base. Go, you know, go to the base. Exchange is what it was called. It was like the mall of the base where you did all your shopping, go to the movies on base, roam the streets late at night. My dad was gone a decent amount. He was in Iraq for a year while we were in Hawaii. My sophomore and junior year, like half and half. So that was hard. It was always hard to have him gone. Oh, I forgot. I was actually a very important part of being in the military is how much I did look up to my dad. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be a pilot and I wanted to fly a 10s just like he did.

John Dehlin [00:21:44] Wow.

Thomas Stokes [00:21:45] And so, yeah, being raised in the military was really important in that regards. I ended up not being able to become a pilot though, because I have bad eyesight, I have asthma, and to top it all off, I have vertigo, which not a good combination of your pilot.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] No, not gonna work. So you, you mentioned. So in your outline you've got the song, the couch that you wanted to play. And then also you mentioned things like the Mormon military community. You got some stories there. And also struggles being in the church.

Thomas Stokes [00:22:19] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:19] So I can like go in whatever order you want.

Thomas Stokes [00:22:21] Yeah, I'll play the couch in a second. I did forget about the one thing about the Mormon military community is that we were, especially in Korea, we were so, so close. There was about 100 people in our branch, and it was. It was family because we would be gone. Like husbands would be gone. And so you would have wives and children that needed taken care of in the ward, in the war. Yeah. And they would come back and of course it'd be fine. But there was so much adversity that comes with being a military family on. Throw the church on top of that and you got a safety net, a really good community that. So that everyone takes care of everyone. I didn't know about any. I'm sure there were problems, but as a kid, I didn't see them. But one. One experience that kind of reminds me of how close everyone was, was every Christmas Eve, my family would go out for fast food. That's our tradition. Still is. And we. We invited the whole branch to. To come to the food court with us on Christmas Eve. And we thought maybe a family or two would show up. Literally, the whole branch showed up. There were over 100 people in this tiny food court. And we got all the tables and lined them up banquet style and just had a big fast food feast. And it was like, to this day, those memories are really special for me because it was such a unique experience. I feel like it would have been a lot different in Utah, but I wasn't raised in Utah, and so it was a really positive experience.

John Dehlin [00:23:51] I relate to that because you just, you know everyone, you know these 50 families or whatever, and you know people's names and you're all there and you're celebrating stuff together, and it just feels good to feel like you have a tribe. Right. I mean, I think we're wired to. To. To be tribal.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:06] Oh, yeah. Human. All humans are. I think. I think that's very accurate. Yeah. What.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] What are coffee brownies? What is that?

Thomas Stokes [00:24:16] That was just. That was another funny story that I feel like maybe if this happened in another. In another place, it would have been more of a scandal. But people were chilling. They were chill Mormons in that community. So we were at a ward function, and this lady who is like kind of the funny. The funny mom, she's new too, right?

Sierra Stokes [00:24:38] To the church, to the community.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:40] Yeah, I think maybe. I think she had just moved in. Anyway, she made these awesome brownies, and the primary kids ate them up like that, like super fast. And everyone's like, these are the best brownies ever. And then we noticed the kids started like going nuts like crazy.

Sierra Stokes [00:24:56] Off the wall.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:57] Off the wal. And we're like, what the heck? And we're like, sister, I don't know if names are appropriate, but Sister Blank, what did you put in those brownies? And she was like, oh, this, that, that, and some coffee. Like, coffee. Like you.

Sierra Stokes [00:25:09] Not.

Thomas Stokes [00:25:09] Not coffee. And she's like, oh, it's all right. It cooks out, doesn't it? Like, it's alcohol, you know? And we're like, yeah, that's not how I like.

John Dehlin [00:25:18] The caffeine cooks out.

Guest [00:25:19] I know, right?

Thomas Stokes [00:25:20] The caffeine cooks out. It's totally fine. But it was just like. But instead of us, like, freaking out, we all just laughed our heads off. And, you know, it was just.

Sierra Stokes [00:25:28] It was family again. I don't think that bubble was there, which was really, I think, a blessing in disguise for you growing up, because everybody was Mormon, but they weren't so Mormon that something like that again, would have been a scandal. Like, you just fed all the primary kids coffee. What a sin.

John Dehlin [00:25:47] So, yeah, it's. It's a little bit more relaxed outside of Utah, basically.

Thomas Stokes [00:25:51] Even though my family was strict, like, we were. We were relaxed, you know, we. We wouldn't. I wouldn't call us extremists by any means. And still to this day, like, just very devout. Just devout and good people, you know, which is how I think the church should be. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:07] So no. No run ins with the bishop or, like, guilt, shame spiral kind of stuff as a teen.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:12] Mormon teen as a teen. Like, we're even, like, law of chastity, masturbation stuff.

Sierra Stokes [00:26:17] That was never a poster boy.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:19] I was a poster. Very, very much so for. Thank you for that beautiful compliment for staying.

John Dehlin [00:26:25] I'm gonna say it in air quotes for staying clean.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:27] I was.

John Dehlin [00:26:29] Good for you.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] You get a medal for that one.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:35] It might be because I was like, I did have, like, one run in with, like, almost watching porn as a middle schooler, and it scarred me so bad that I was like, never again. And I was like, so, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:26:48] So you did have, like, one run in with shame, you would say.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:51] Oh, yeah. I felt the darkness creep in immediately. And I was like, I don't want that in my life.

John Dehlin [00:26:56] Good for you.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:57] Yeah, thanks.

John Dehlin [00:27:00] You mentioned in your. In your outline anti Mormon literature a little bit. Did you already talk about that?

Thomas Stokes [00:27:04] No, I. Yeah, the only anti Mormon, anti Mormon literature.

John Dehlin [00:27:09] He's doing air quotes for those listeners

Thomas Stokes [00:27:11] I ever experienced in high school was I was reading in bed one night, and I don't even know how I came across it across it, but I was Reading this random article about the Kirtland revelation where God or Jesus came down and, you know, gave him and Elijah and all them gave Moses, Joseph, and Oliver Cowdery. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:36] By angels and prophets.

Thomas Stokes [00:27:38] And then I remember reading something that said Jesus's voice. Like, this is Oliver Cowdery saying Jesus's voice sounded eerily similar to Sidney Rigdon. And I was like, oh. And I was like, what? And then I just shut it, and I didn't read it at all. And to this day, I can't even find that. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but I cannot find that. So if anyone knows where that is, cool. But I. I just immediately shut it out. Did not even go there. I didn't run into anything like that until my mission. Anything further? I found out about Joseph's polygamy through seminary through a faithful lens. But they obviously did not say all the details about it. But my experience with any opposition to the church was extremely limited until my mission.

Thomas Performs His First Song

John Dehlin [00:28:25] All right, I guess before we go to your freshman year, you had a song you wanted to play, is that right? So tell us about this first song and what it's talking about.

Thomas Stokes [00:28:33] So I actually wrote this song in 2017, before my faith crisis, and it's called the Couch. I originally wrote because I was imagining what it would be like if I wasn't in the church. Like, it's talking about my fear, like, the dangers of alcohol, the dangers of letting your life slip by, of missing what's important. And at that time, it was through a faithful lens. As I evolved and as my beliefs changed, that song still resonated with me in many ways as kind of a reminder of what. What I was like. But also a lot of the. The themes of the song stay the same, like, yeah, don't let your life slip by. Be true to yourself. Don't watch out for alcohol. Because I talk about that, too.

Sierra Stokes [00:29:22] I kind of think you should mention. Or this is. This is worth mentioning, that go ahead

John Dehlin [00:29:27] and set up while she's talking.

Thomas Stokes [00:29:28] Oh, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:29:29] Alcoholism is a big fear in Thomas's family because. Oh, yeah, it does run in the family, if you will, which we haven't had any problems with that. But like he said, that's a pretty big theme in this song because it's something that he was warned about so frequently and so vehemently in. In his childhood and even up until a little more recently. I think we can probably dive into that a little bit. Just his dad specifically coming down the Stokes line, alcohol playing A big part in. In your quality of life. Basically.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:09] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:30:10] I was thinking you wrote the song, you were scared of that. And now that you can sing the song again, that fear is.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:18] Is much, much less. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:20] All right. So this is the couch.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:21] The couch. Yep. I'm gonna actually take off my brain.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] Thomas. Thomas Stokes.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:25] Yeah. I'll be big crick under any sort of big crick. Yeah. B, I, G, C, R, I, C, K. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:30:34] Big crick.

Guest [00:30:51] Take the time you have. Sweep it all back so it's spread on the couch. Cause you drank all your. All the time you spend chasing your life. So to have the perfect children and to win the right bride. But she's slipping right through your fingertips now. And you're missing what's right in front of you now. What's another few days in the hole. When you don't have a possible clue where to go? Never mind a few fanciful tricks. And the way that she smiles when you lift up her chin. Cause she's slimpin right through your fingertips now. And you're missing what's right in front of you now. Heaven knows her and you'll never know me. So have another spirit and you'll finally be free. You'll get another chance to burn. But first you gotta die. Cut away the man from the spirit inside. Come to reason now. Come to the light. Unbridle your fears, let the darkness ignite. Til it's all in one tangible hole. Where the sky meets the ground. To come crawling your home. Cause life's slippin right through your fingertips now. And you're wishing the fight right away from you now. Heaven knows her and you never know me. So have another spirit and you'll finally be free. You'll get another chance to burn. But first you gotta die. Cut away the man from the spirit inside. Don't be afraid to die. Don't be afraid. I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid. Heaven knows her and you never know me. So have another spirit and you'll finally be free. You get another chance to burn. But first you gotta die. Cut away the man from the spirit inside. Cut away the man from the spirit inside. Cut away the man from the spirit inside. Cut away the man from the spirit inside.

John Dehlin [00:34:00] I love it.

Guest [00:34:01] Woo.

John Dehlin [00:34:01] Do we clap?

Sierra Stokes [00:34:02] I was gonna say, are we allowed to.

Guest [00:34:04] Thanks.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:05] Appreciate it.

Sierra Stokes [00:34:06] Leaning back.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] So make the most of the life you have.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:08] Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:34:10] And don't drink.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:11] Don't drink.

John Dehlin [00:34:14] Shout out to Boyd X. Boyd X writes. I love live music, even when it's online. This is great.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:19] So thanks.

John Dehlin [00:34:20] Hope you listeners are enjoying some live music. We like to try and be creative and. And do fun, cool things on Mormon stories, so this is fun. Thanks, Thomas, for being willing to share your talents with us.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:32] Absolutely. It's a blast.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] Okay, so I guess is. Is anything else about your upbringing, your family, before you go to college? Is that kind of where we are?

Thomas Stokes [00:34:45] It was about as perfect as it could have been. I literally. I remember one more thing. Sorry, if. Why? I remember being troubled because everyone else in my group was like, I've been through this and that and that, and I've. I've been through so many hardships. And I remember thinking, my life is pretty easy and perfect. And I brought it up to my counselor and he said, it's perfect because you're so solid. And I was like, okay, that's like.

Sierra Stokes [00:35:12] You accepted that?

Thomas Stokes [00:35:13] I accepted that. I was like, I guess my life is perfect because I'm righteous. So. Yeah. That's all I have to say.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] Okay. So kind of. Kind of living. Living the Mormon dream a little bit.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:24] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:24] Did you. Did you think of yourself as being Nephi? Like, being super righteous and.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:30] No, no. This sounds weird. Like, I don't. I want to say, like, I was so humble, but I just felt kind of normal. You know, I felt special because I was in the church, but I. I was always like, yeah, no, that's just normal.

Sierra Stokes [00:35:45] I don't think you take on, like, the warrior.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:47] No. Yeah. I didn't try to be like, the. The Nephi or anything. I was just. Just living life and enjoying it.

College at BYU and Preparing for a Mission

John Dehlin [00:35:53] Okay. All right, so college.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:58] College.

John Dehlin [00:35:59] So you graduated high school in what state? In Georgia.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:03] I graduated high school in Hawaii.

John Dehlin [00:36:05] Okay. In Hawaii. All right.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:07] Which was awesome. But the time came, I graduated. Did I have a choice on where I wanted to go? Kind of, but not really. I knew it was going to be byu.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] Well, there's BYU Hawaii.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:19] You know, I did have that thought. But the reason I chose BYU Provo was because of their music program. Okay. I wanted to major in commercial music, which some of you might know that major. It's basically sound design, mixing production, songwriting, basically doing what I do now, but a degree for it. Super strict. Not strict. What's the word? Hard to get.

John Dehlin [00:36:43] It's rigorous and Rigorous.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:44] Demanding. Yeah, yeah. It was hard to get into. I had, like, a less than 10 acceptance rate, and so I did my audition before I started the semester. Didn't get into the program, so I said, bummer. I guess I'll just prepare with my. I'LL prepare to audition again right before my mission, and I'll just do my generals. So my freshman year of BYU was pretty. Just pretty standard. I was Elders Quorum President in my. In my ward, which was the first time my testimony had been put to the test because, you know, my parents weren't there to make me go to church. So I had to take it upon myself to develop my own testimony and know that the church was true, take care of people in my Quorum, which was challenging, but not too bad. I. Everything was mostly focused on school, but, yeah, the calling was. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:37:50] Were you in the dorms?

Thomas Stokes [00:37:51] Yeah, I was in Healman Hall.

John Dehlin [00:37:53] Hall.

Thomas Stokes [00:37:53] Oh, no. Wow. No.

John Dehlin [00:37:54] Heritage.

Sierra Stokes [00:37:55] Heritage.

Thomas Stokes [00:37:55] Yeah, I was in Heritage.

John Dehlin [00:37:56] You made your own food?

Thomas Stokes [00:37:57] Yeah, I made my own food, which I still love cooking to this day, so. And I owe it all to my mother and Heritage Halls.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] Okay, so how over. Anything important happened your freshman year?

Thomas Stokes [00:38:11] The only thing important that happened was my roommate was my best friend from Hawaii. We roomed together, and he will come in later into the story, but we had an awesome time together. Fantastic experience together. It was, again, just living the Mormon dream and.

John Dehlin [00:38:31] Elders Quorum President.

Thomas Stokes [00:38:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:32] So that's kind of a big. That's kind of a big deal. Like, you know, you've got all these kids from. All these Mormon kids from all over the world converging at BYU to find their Eternal Companion. Let's just be honest. Getting education is maybe the second priority,

Sierra Stokes [00:38:47] but finding your Eternal Companion, it's a matchmaking program.

Thomas Stokes [00:38:49] That's fair.

John Dehlin [00:38:49] I mean, it really is. Job number one at BYU is to find your Eternal Companion, full stop.

Thomas Stokes [00:38:56] Yeah. Lots of people got married that year.

John Dehlin [00:38:57] And so you've got a ward that you're in, and let's just say there's 150 men and 150 women. The guy that is picked as Elders Quorum President, you know, that's kind of a big. That's kind of a big. I don't know, it would feel validating or something.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:15] I was second Quorum Elders President, so I was the back burner Elders. What does that mean? No, there were two Elders Quorums.

Sierra Stokes [00:39:23] Just.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:24] I was one of two.

John Dehlin [00:39:24] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:25] No, I. It was. Yeah. I don't. I don't think I thought that much of it. Like, I knew it was important, but I don't think it made me think I was more important than anyone else.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] Okay. So even though you're kind of, like, checking the boxes and really living, what I think many would say is, like, you know, no, no, Big law of chastity slip ups, you know, going to byu, becoming elders president, elders quorum president. It sounds like in your mind you're not like, wow, I'm really doing this. There's, there's a, there's a humility or just, let's just say a not over emphasis on your personal righteousness. Yeah, there's a, there's a relaxedness I'm sensing about your righteousness.

Thomas Stokes [00:40:12] I owe that to my parents. And not being raised in Utah, I think.

John Dehlin [00:40:19] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:40:19] I think it would have been a lot bigger of deal in my mind if I was raised in Utah in the bubble. And also my parents are wonderful and they like, they always talked about, they taught the gospel in a way that was centered around being a good person, which I think is very important, and not being like, oh, I'm so righteous. There were definitely things that, you know, now I don't agree with just because it's what the church teaches, but they taught me to be a good person. And I don't know anyone that knows me can, can probably testify or say that. Yeah, you know, it's just, it's. The gospel for me was not about being more righteous than other than others. It was just about being a good person, being kind.

John Dehlin [00:41:07] Okay, so I guess his mission is Mission next. I want to jump. You can check your outline. Is. Is mission next or.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:14] I'm pretty.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] Hold that. And then.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:16] Oh, yeah. Just so you can always keep forgetting to. Yeah, let's see. Yeah, mission's next.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] Okay, so let's do it. So you. Do you apply for your mission while at byu?

Thomas Stokes [00:41:26] I was at byu. Oh. And I think it's very important to note while I was applying for my mission, I also applied to the school of Music one more time. I had been rigorously training on to be on classical piano. I had a private teacher to help me with the audition. I was working on my portfolio on my songs that I was.

John Dehlin [00:41:47] You're auditioning as a pianist?

Thomas Stokes [00:41:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:50] That's intense.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:51] Byu.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:52] Yeah. Because. Because I auditioned on guitar the year before and my technical knowledge on the guitar is, is not great. I've just, I just enjoy playing it and I'm comfortable.

John Dehlin [00:42:00] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:01] But my technical knowledge on the piano was much higher. And so I cultivated that the whole year, freshman year, and did my audition in January. Nailed it. But I still got put on the waiting list. I was number four on the waiting list. And I didn't know what to do at that point because I was going to go on a mission, put in my mission papers And I got called to Santiago, South Chile. Chile, Yep. And that was super exciting. My dad actually predicted it. He called it. He was like, you're going to Chile. And he was the only one that was right. And he was.

John Dehlin [00:42:39] Had your dad served a mission?

Thomas Stokes [00:42:41] Yeah, he went to Peru. Lima. I want to say north, which at this point.

John Dehlin [00:42:45] So we went to South America.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:46] Yep. I was super pumped about that. And then my brother, he went to Northern California, Spanish speaking. So I was super excited about speaking Spanish, South America, everything. My dad told me so much about Peru growing up, and that was exciting for me. So I was. I was so happy to be. To be going there.

John Dehlin [00:43:08] So again, foreign. Foreign speaking mission is kind of viewed as like, kind of.

Thomas Stokes [00:43:14] Oh, yeah, top notch.

John Dehlin [00:43:16] So you're living the dream. You're living the Mormon dream.

Thomas Stokes [00:43:18] After your mission, it was like. I can't tell you how perfect everything was.

John Dehlin [00:43:22] Yeah, yeah. What was your. As you were like going into the mtc, what was your testimony like?

Thomas Stokes [00:43:27] It was pretty solid, actually. I. I had read the Book of Mormon. The only answers I ever felt like I got, though were just tinglies. Not even like the burning in the bosom, but you know how you can kind of like get the chills if you listen to a nice song or something inspiring. That would happen when I would listen to hymns. Hymns were huge for me. And occasionally during. During talks or certain things like that, but mostly hymns. I would feel the spirit during hymns. And so that was. That was big for me. I. I clung to that very, very strongly, and my testimony was good. It had never seen any adversity, though, so I was pretty naive going into it.

Serving a Mission in Chile

John Dehlin [00:44:12] Okay, all right. So, yeah, Chile, I. I don't know how much more stories you've watched, but Chile, the Chile mission is. Is a very. Weighs heavy on my heart because I had a. In Guatemala on my mission, there was just this massive push to baptize thousands. And so Guatemala had, you know, 10 activity rates and thousands of people on a. On a ward or a branch role and maybe 10 people attending. And Chile was the only country I was aware of that actually has been worse than Guatemala in terms of Mormon missionaries baptizing. Just mountains of people and having like a less than a 10% activity rate.

Thomas Stokes [00:44:56] 5%.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:44:58] Was it after your mission when you were home that they kind of went in and cleaned things up?

John Dehlin [00:45:03] Well, let me just say. Let me just say that, like, for those of you on Mormon stories who don't know, go back and listen to my Ted Lyon interview. You can listen to my Roger Hendricks Interview. But we talk about how during, you know, there was a mission in Vina del Mar in Chile that had over a thousand baptisms a month while I was a missionary in Guatemala. And Elder Holland had to go to Chile. Was that before or after you. To clean things up. And he closed 30 stakes because the church was just decimated because of these awful baptismal practices.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:35] Yes. I want to see.

John Dehlin [00:45:36] What year were you in Chile?

Thomas Stokes [00:45:37] I was in Chile from 2014 to 2016.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] Yeah. That would have been after.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:41] Yeah. So we knew about Holland.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] You knew that he had been there.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:45] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:46] And one of my mentors at byu, Ted Lyon, had served as a mission president in Chile, went back and was temple president in Chile, was Elder Holland's interpreter, and he's the one who validated all this stuff.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:56] It's all true.

John Dehlin [00:45:57] And so he was MTC president, too. So, I mean, anyway, that all would have happened before you ever went to Chile, and so. But you would have also gone after Holland had closed and collapsed and canceled all these wards and branches and closed over 30 stakes. And so I just want to kind of give that history to set the stage for, like, what you would have encountered.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:18] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:46:19] When you stepped onto the mission. But you can talk about the MTC first, if you want.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:24] Obviously, I cried the first night I got to the MTC and then told myself I had to suck it up.

John Dehlin [00:46:31] And so two months in the mcc,

Thomas Stokes [00:46:33] it was six weeks.

John Dehlin [00:46:34] Six weeks.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:34] Yeah. It was pretty.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] In Chile or.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:36] It was in Chile. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] You did the Chile obtc.

Sierra Stokes [00:46:38] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:39] Yep. Which was kind of cool. I enjoyed. I enjoyed being there. It was a little scary, but not a ton to say about the mtc. Food wasn't great. That's about it. But I got to the mission field, and, yeah, we. We heard about the Great Purge of Elder Holland.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] What would you have heard?

Thomas Stokes [00:46:58] We heard. No, pretty much exactly what you said.

John Dehlin [00:47:01] I would love to hear in your words.

Thomas Stokes [00:47:02] Yeah, you get there. We. I got there, and my companion was like, hey, there are over a thousand people in the ward on this list. We have to go door to door, go through the whole list, see who lives there, see who doesn't, cross anyone off, basically, like, make sure that we have the numbers right. Just because there were so many people and many of them had moved. So our. One of our biggest jobs at the beginning of my mission was seeing who lived where and getting a hold of all the members. And there was. I think it was a 5% activity rate when. When I first got there.

John Dehlin [00:47:37] 5.

Thomas Stokes [00:47:38] 5. Yeah. Our mission was bad. And my mission in the whole mission. Yeah, the whole mission was about 5% activity.

John Dehlin [00:47:46] I just want you guys. 5% of the members who had been baptized in this entire mission in Chile were active, meaning There was a 95% inactivity rate in a single mission. So when you think about. We've tried to cover this on Mormon stories that, like, the church says 16 million people are members, but when you've got, like, a country where 5% are active now you know why we say it's more like 3 to 4 million at the most who are active in the church. So get. I'm blown away, but 5%.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:21] Yeah, you're fine.

John Dehlin [00:48:21] 5% activity rates.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:23] I'm pretty sure that was the number I would have to reach out to my mission president to confirm that. We actually ended up raising a solid amount, partially due to how good my mission president was. Best guy ever. I still love him. He walked me through part of my faith crisis, but he was all around, very loving guy. Maybe it's because he wasn't, like, super strict. He let us. He was a pretty chill mission president, all things considered. Not strict about the rules.

Sierra Stokes [00:48:54] He was honest. I feel like that plays a big part, is that it wasn't numbers for him. He was honestly there to do what missions are meant to be, which is not just. It's not just baptisms. It's actual conversion, you know, so he's a really good guy. I met him once, and I think honesty played a big part in how he ran his. What would that be Area. I guess all of his missionaries. Yeah. So that was really good that they stationed him there.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:22] I think he's also probably one of the only democrat mission presidents ever.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] Oh, wow.

Sierra Stokes [00:49:29] That might play a big part too.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:30] It might. Who knows?

John Dehlin [00:49:32] So your mission president was a registered Democrat?

Thomas Stokes [00:49:34] Oh, yeah, Big time.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] Okay.

Sierra Stokes [00:49:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:36] That's cool.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:36] Yeah. Like, I.

Sierra Stokes [00:49:37] He's pretty progressive.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:38] Yeah, he's a good guy. I'll get more about.

Sierra Stokes [00:49:41] He's really cool.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:42] We'll bring him up more because I think he was an important part of my mission. But, yeah, let's see. Mission.

John Dehlin [00:49:47] So they sit you down and say, there's been a problem. Did you finish that part of the story?

Thomas Stokes [00:49:53] Just what you were told, that most of our work at the beginning was trying to teach inactives and bring them back.

John Dehlin [00:49:59] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:00] Yeah. Which honestly changed things a lot. We still did baptisms, but not a ton.

John Dehlin [00:50:06] So was there a sense of saturation? I always wondered this in those countries like Chile and Mexico and others where you just knock on the Doors and everybody seen missionaries forever. Yeah. You know, and so you're tracting. Almost isn't worthwhile because everybody knew you're there. The country had been tracted out.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:24] Yeah. Almost all my baptisms came from tracting. But I could. On every single area that I lived in, I could walk across it. Walk across it in 20 minutes.

John Dehlin [00:50:35] And super small.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:36] Super small.

John Dehlin [00:50:37] So many missions.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:38] Yeah, it was kind of the. More the poor part. And so it was a little bit more on the dangerous side as well. But the houses were super close.

Guest [00:50:47] We.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:48] So I had knocked on every door in all of my areas probably three times, maybe more.

John Dehlin [00:50:53] Oh, my gosh.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:54] Yeah, there's a lot of knocking.

John Dehlin [00:50:55] That's crazy.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:57] Actually, we didn't knock. We. You say hello. That's how you knock. It's like in Argentina, I think you clap. In other countries you whistle. Well, that's how you do in Chile.

John Dehlin [00:51:06] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:51:06] Yeah, okay. But, yeah, I was pretty obedient. My brother gave me some good advice, though. He was like, dude, you can be super obedient and you should be super obedient. But have fun. Don't be afraid to take breaks. Don't be afraid to have fun with your companion. Don't be afraid to goof off.

Sierra Stokes [00:51:26] Be a little rowdy.

Thomas Stokes [00:51:27] Be a little rowdy when you can. And I took that to heart. I was not going to be the square missionary, but I was going to be the obedient missionary. And so I took that to heart. I think I succeeded. You can ask any of my companions if you want. But I'm pretty sure it was just. I had a good balance between. And having fun and working hard. The worst thing I did on my mission, I did get a little disobedient was there was. Yeah, there was a night. This is a funny story. There was a night where two nights of the year there are organized riots in the streets of Santiago due to some injustices that happened. But we won't get into all that. But basically riots happen and we have to stay inside all day. And we were. We're supposed to clean and study the scriptures. But we had a member in our ward that was like, hey, elders, you want to borrow my TV and DVD collection? So we went to his house and got his big screen TV and carried it all the way to our apartment and watched movies all day. But I made sure they were appropriate movies. So. Yeah, that's like the worst thing I ever did on my.

John Dehlin [00:52:41] Did you watch a movie you shouldn't have watched?

Thomas Stokes [00:52:42] Yeah, okay, I did. They were watching Age of Ultron. And I was like, we shouldn't watch that one. So I did yoga in the other room. But we watched, like, the good dinosaur Kung Fu Panda 3. Yeah, that's, they were just like innocent movies, kid movies, but it was a, it was a blast. We would just, we would just ate food all day and watch movies. Well, that's, to give you an idea. That's, that's the worst I ever did on my mission.

John Dehlin [00:53:09] To tell you how much of an insufferable missionary I was. I never watched a movie on my mission that would have been just, that would have been too far. So that's how lame I was. And I'm not trying to one up you or float.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:19] No, please.

John Dehlin [00:53:20] But that's how insufferable I was.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:23] I, I, I would also watch the Copa America, which is.

John Dehlin [00:53:27] Oh, football, Football.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:28] Yeah, I, I, we would watch that. I think I watched it one of the two years when Chile won against Argentina.

Sierra Stokes [00:53:36] Is that technically not allowed?

John Dehlin [00:53:37] Talk about what happens when a goal is scored and you're, like, walking through the streets.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:42] They're nuts. They go crazy. Everyone brings out, like, the, the gangsters. They have their guns and they start firing them in the air. There are people running out in the streets, screaming, yelling. Everyone has their asado, and. Yeah, cool. Yeah, people go nuts. It. That was a really cool part of being there because, like, I don't know, America, they, We just don't treat soccer right. We're like, oh, it's for sissies. But, like, it's an awesome sport. Super fun. So it was good to see that, that side of the world. I enjoyed that part of it.

John Dehlin [00:54:17] Jump to the stories before we do the, the doubts.

Thomas Stokes [00:54:20] Oh, the doubts. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:21] Go through the stories. And I don't know when you want to include the song for this one,

Thomas Stokes [00:54:24] but, yeah, we'll do it at the end.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:54:25] At the end.

John Dehlin [00:54:26] So go through other stories you want to share. And then I want to do the faith stuff.

Thomas Stokes [00:54:32] One moment of arrogance as a missionary kind of shown through. I was knocking on doors, and I saw this lady in the front yard, in her front yard, and she was trying to take care of her daughter, and she didn't want to listen to us. And this was towards the beginning of my mission, and that's when I was a little more strict. And I remember getting kind of frustrated with her, and she kept saying, no, no, no. But I was being persistent, like I was taught to be. And finally I was like, like, all right, we'll leave. But just so you know, we have the Keys to your salvation. And I walked off. And almost immediately after I was like, why did I say that? That is so arrogant.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] A little missionary pride.

Guest [00:55:13] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:14] It's so bad. I regret that to this day. And I hope she forgot about that.

John Dehlin [00:55:18] But I remember those moments. It's just you're getting rejected all the time and eventually you get frustrated and so it comes out in kind of these passive aggressive, yeah, I'm more righteous than you, I'm going to the social kingdom, you're not.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:28] Not. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:29] Kind of stuff.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:30] Yeah, absolutely. I felt so bad.

John Dehlin [00:55:32] You'll pay.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:32] And, and I, I, I'm at least happy that I had the awareness to realize that it was not something I should have said. Like, right, right after, that's something that happened. I casted out an evil spirit. What? Which was pretty cool.

John Dehlin [00:55:46] Talk about that.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:47] I used to not tell this story to anyone because I thought it was too sacred. Yeah. So this kid, he was coming back to activity. He lived with his sister, niece and brother in law. And his. Unfortunately, his brother in law actually killed himself in that house where they lived together, which was very sad. A couple days later, he calls us and he was like, elders, I think there's an evil spirit in my house. Or maybe it's him, I don't know. But he called us over, we went over and he said that while he was laying in bed, he kept hearing a voice saying, which means kill yourself. And so he was freaking out because he was like, what if this spirit is what told. You know, this is a spirit that told my brother in law to kill himself over and over again. So he was freaking out, and I told him, all right, let's bless the house. And I was with my companion who was from Utah as well. So we were both a little bit like, not on the superstitious side. But as soon as we walked into the house, I could feel like a presence. I was, I felt dark. You know, I was scared, super scared. And we talk about it, we're like, hey, man, as soon as we command the spirit to leave, he will leave. If you have faith. If you have faith. And he was like, all right, let's do it. So we all knelt down together and I said a prayer. And as soon as I said, you know, in the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you out, I felt kind of better. And we got up and he was like, this, this is great. Thank you. I feel good now. I was like, awesome. We left. And then as we're walking, I'm with my companion, won't say any Names, but he's from Utah. Super, like, you know, he was pretty shy and a cool kid. We started rough, but he became one of my favorite companions. I love him to this day. And I was like, dude, what'd you think about that? And he was like, yeah. No. And he didn't have much to say. I was like, do you think it was real? And he was like, it was real. And I was like, how do you know? And he goes, because I saw him walk out of the room. And I was like, what?

Sierra Stokes [00:57:59] What? Who?

Thomas Stokes [00:57:59] He goes, I saw him walk out of the room. The spirit. And I was like, are you serious? He goes, yeah. As soon as you started the prayer, he walked out of the room, stood right behind you while you were kneeling on the floor, was looking down at you, just like that. And as soon as you said, told him to leave, he just walked out the door. And I was like, you're kidding. Don't mess with me right now. Don't mess with me. And he was like, it's true. And he was like, this has been a thing for me since I was a kid. I can see things.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] Was he a native?

Thomas Stokes [00:58:28] He was white kid from Utah. Yeah. And so that's why I was. I. I was like, utah is not a very superstitious place for how spiritual it is. It's not. It's not superstitious. Well, I don't know.

Sierra Stokes [00:58:40] Maybe it is.

John Dehlin [00:58:40] Some parts it is.

Thomas Stokes [00:58:41] Okay, maybe he was from superstitious part, but I was like. Like freaking out. And he was not the kind to mess with you. He was a super sincere kid. And I say kid, but we were the same age. I. I love him and I trusted him. And so I don't know, Like, I didn't know what to do with that story for a long time, and I still don't.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] That's okay. You don't have to resolve it now.

Guest [00:59:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:03] I don't have what it meant to you at the time.

Thomas Stokes [00:59:04] It meant a whole lot to me. I was like, I have the power of God.

John Dehlin [00:59:10] And.

Thomas Stokes [00:59:10] And. Oh, and I have another story too, that is also relevant. Before that, it was within six months of my mission. I went to the ER because the guy we were teaching, he was into some gang violence. He got stabbed seven times, once through the heart, and he was in critical condition. And his wife was like, go give him a blessing. And he was like, okay. And my trainer was like, you got this, man? And I gave him a blessing. And I felt prompted to say that he would live. I was like, you will live. And he was in critical condition. Doctor said he had less than a 10% chance of living. But I still, I told him he would live. And sure enough, he lived. And I was like, I got the power of God. I am powerful. Not me, but like, God is working through me. And I felt special about that. Of course, when we went to go visit him after he was out of the hospital, we found out he had brain damage and he had the mental capacity of a. A seven year old, more or less. And that was shocking to me because I was like, wait. But God prompted me and said that he would be fine. But then I got the justification and it was like, oh, well, he was involved in gang violence. If he had his normal mental capacity, he would have gone straight back into that life.

John Dehlin [01:00:25] So God.

Thomas Stokes [01:00:26] So God was he deca. Decapitated, Debilitated him so he would be more docile and not get into bad things, stay safe because he couldn't repair

John Dehlin [01:00:36] and no, no, just get better.

Thomas Stokes [01:00:37] Yeah, no, no, that's. That's off the table. God works in mysterious ways.

John Dehlin [01:00:41] And sometimes things like that mess with your head as a Mormon kid, because you're like, well, if I had just not healed him, maybe he would have died, but he would have had higher quality of life this way. I revived him. But now he's debilitated to the intellectual capacity of the seventh, you know, and it's like, wait, was that good? And why. And again, like you said, why would God partially heal him but not fully and then. And then make him live like that for the rest of his life?

Sierra Stokes [01:01:08] And I tried such a heavy thing. Because you're old. Were you on your mission? 2022?

Thomas Stokes [01:01:14] I went when I was 19. Oh yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:16] So you're even younger.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] It can be heavy.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:18] So heavy.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] Unless you just compartmentalize it, which is

Thomas Stokes [01:01:21] what I did, of course. Naturally. That's how you get through.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:23] I think most people do.

Thomas Stokes [01:01:25] Yeah, that one was super hard. And I went and taught him a lesson after and it really was just like teaching a kid. And, and his wife. I tried to tell him about the atonement. And his wife was like, elder, he doesn't understand. And I was like, oh. So I had to dumb it down. I was like, Jesus loves you. And then we left, you know, and I didn't ever taught him again. So.

John Dehlin [01:01:49] Yeah, yeah, it's intense. Those moments are intense really quickly. We have a viewer who says Utah is very superstitious. So that.

Thomas Stokes [01:01:57] Okay, I wasn't raised.

John Dehlin [01:01:58] There is a lot of superstition.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:00] I don't know Maybe, Maybe. Maybe it is superstitious.

John Dehlin [01:02:02] No, it's both.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:03] It's both. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:02:04] Yeah, it's both.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:05] I mean, I was raised outside, you know, military. Not superstitious, right? Not. Not at all. I. I never believed much in. In anything like that. Totally. Another thing, you know, plenty of danger on my mission. I had guns pointed at me. I got punched in the face. Got attempted robbery three or four times, none successful. They were. The mission president always told me, like, just give them everything, but we never did. I was like, no, you can't have my watch. And we would just walk away. And it always worked out, but it was kind of dangerous because I thought I was protected, so I was a little more bold than I should have been. And I definitely, looking back, I was in some dangerous situations. We were. That one day that I told you that the riots happened. The first year that happened. We were at night, we had our mattresses on the floor. We are all laying. We all had a weapon. We're all laying on the floor while gunshots literally right outside our door were just bam, bam, bam, bam. People vandalizing everything, like screaming fires all night. And I. For me, it was. It was a badge of honor. It was cool. I was being valiant. You know, this. I'm doing this for the Lord. It was a sacrifice, so it felt good, but I was also scared shitless at the same time. Sorry. Can we swear?

John Dehlin [01:03:22] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:23] Okay. I've listened to enough.

Sierra Stokes [01:03:25] But yeah, anyway, go back and do it now, probably.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:29] No, no. That was scary.

John Dehlin [01:03:31] I remember in Guatemala, there would be a coup d' etat and you'd see soldiers, tanks going.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:36] You were there for a couple.

John Dehlin [01:03:37] Oh, yeah. But. But the thing is, it wasn't a big deal. I'm like.

Sierra Stokes [01:03:41] It was normal.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] I'm like, you know, there's tanks going by and soldiers and. And I'm Jeeps. And I'm like, dude. And the companion's just like, that's nothing. There's just a.

Sierra Stokes [01:03:51] Like, we'll be fine.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] It's. Oh, Latin America is a whole different. I'm sure Africa is the same way.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:56] Oh, yeah. And of course, I was told to not tell my mom about any of this.

John Dehlin [01:04:01] Yeah. Missionaries. More missionaries are literally told, don't write home anything bad or scary.

Thomas Stokes [01:04:06] I don't.

John Dehlin [01:04:06] Don't write home.

Thomas Stokes [01:04:07] If she listens to this, some of that stuff would be news to her. Yeah, I still haven't told her. Which, by the way, family, if you're listening to this, I love you. I hope this, it doesn't hurt your feelings too. Bad. We'll get into that later, though.

John Dehlin [01:04:24] And you got punched in the face, did you? Did I did. You already said that.

Thomas Stokes [01:04:28] Yeah, I didn't, I didn't go into detail. I just said I got punched in the face.

John Dehlin [01:04:30] Okay, yeah, yeah. How'd you get punched in the face?

Thomas Stokes [01:04:32] We were walking across the street or down the sidewalk. And this was in like the first three months of my mission, so I was super new and we're taught to say hello to everyone. We go, hola, buenas, like, buenas tardes, you know. And then as soon as we were walking, I said that to this guy. And as soon as I said it, he goes, concha tamale, which is basically mother effer, you know, in. In Spanish, in Chilean Spanish at least. And he just goes, bam. It clocks me, right? It was right here, right on the mouth and nose. And I was in shock. I didn't turn around, I didn't stop. I just kept walking.

John Dehlin [01:05:06] And.

Thomas Stokes [01:05:07] And my companion was looking away, and this is my trainer, he was looking away. And then he looks back and he sees that I'm shaking up, shaken up. And he goes, did he just punch me in the face? And I was like, yeah, yeah, let's just keep going.

Sierra Stokes [01:05:19] And.

Thomas Stokes [01:05:21] And that happened. I wrote, I told my mission president about it and that became kind of a story on the mission. I got kind of well known. That story became a little well known for, you know, another kid got stabbed through the hand. Yeah, no, it was no joke. It was the ghetto part of Santiago. So some bad stuff happened.

John Dehlin [01:05:41] Yeah, like, one of the reasons really resonated with the Book of Mormon musical is, you know, it's set in Uganda and that you've got, it's fine, you've got terrorists, you know, you've got warlords there and, you know, you know, people with machine guns and like, like people. People think about Mormon missionaries, especially overseas, it's just white shirts and ties and smiley and short hair in Utah. But the truth is like, like my brother in law had a gun pointed at his chest. Like missionaries. My companion from BYU, my freshman roommate from BYU, Monte McCotter was his name, was killed on his mission. He was hit by car. It can be not only super dangerous and you can die, but even if you stop short of dying, a lot of these foreign missions, like Brazil, you can get stabbed, you can get shot, and you can just be assaulted in ways. Sexually assaulted. Like there's a lot of scary, dangerous, harmful stuff that happens to missionaries that can lead to PTSD and trauma that we, we have not covered enough of that on Mormon stories because that's. There are a lot of people in their mission experiences that have really serious things. Stabbed through the hand.

Thomas Stokes [01:07:00] Yeah, I forgot who it was. It happened right before I got to the field. And that was a big story too.

Sierra Stokes [01:07:09] He probably, I wonder if he probably has like nerve damage now. Like, he probably carries that with him now, which is crazy.

John Dehlin [01:07:16] There was a companionship on my mission that ran over people and killed them. Like Guatemala. You learned in Guatemala, the mission president drove crazy because everybody kind of drives crazy. So the mission president, President Romney, set the tone of just driving like a wild man.

Thomas Stokes [01:07:30] Wait, the missionaries ran.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] So the AP's drove like wild men, following the example of the mission president. And during my mission, one of the missionary, One of the APs ran over and killed somebody. Just driving. Imagine that you're on a mission and you kill somebody.

Sierra Stokes [01:07:46] Now you carry that.

John Dehlin [01:07:48] Yeah. So I'm not trying to say all missions are bad. Lots of more missionaries have a lot of great things happen to them on their mission.

Thomas Stokes [01:07:54] I did.

John Dehlin [01:07:54] But there's also a lot of scary, violent stuff. It's not just like you preach the gospel for two years.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:01] It's really heavy stuff.

John Dehlin [01:08:02] Stuff. Yeah. Heavy stuff.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] Okay, so I think we covered. Yeah. The big stories. Do you want to talk about like your faith stuff and.

Doubts Begin on the Mission

Thomas Stokes [01:08:12] Yes. So the mission is when things started to go downhill for me really quick.

John Dehlin [01:08:19] I'll just go ahead and throw this in. While we're at a pause, one of our listeners, this is Zach, writes, I had a gun pointed at my face during my first week by some drugged out teenage kids.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:29] That's my best, best friend.

John Dehlin [01:08:30] Is that Zach? You know Zach?

Sierra Stokes [01:08:31] That's our Zach.

John Dehlin [01:08:32] He's Zach. Shout out to Zach.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:33] Hey, Zach, how's it going, dude?

John Dehlin [01:08:35] Zach also writes, not safe at all for young dumb kids.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:38] Yep, very true.

John Dehlin [01:08:39] Shout out to Zach.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:40] Yeah, okay. Glad he's watching.

John Dehlin [01:08:41] I gotta, gotta throw Zach's comment.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:43] Oh yeah, yeah. So true.

John Dehlin [01:08:46] So doubts did doubts start to seep in a little bit.

Thomas Stokes [01:08:49] So since everyone knew who Mormons were, everyone knew the bad things about Mormonism too. There was actually an article released on my mission about Joseph Smith's polygamy, some of which I did not know. And it became the talk of the town. Everyone knew about it, everyone started criticizing us for it. So the mission president actually arranged a zone conference, or that's what it's called when the whole mission comes. Right. Zone or just the whole mission conference. And he gave a presentation on polygamy and and shared almost everything. Even the fact that Joseph Smith married other women. Women that were already married. He shared Fanny Alger.

John Dehlin [01:09:36] What?

Thomas Stokes [01:09:37] Yeah, he's.

Sierra Stokes [01:09:37] Again, he's very honest.

John Dehlin [01:09:39] What year was this?

Thomas Stokes [01:09:40] What year? 20. He would have. That was like, 2015. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:09:45] So this would have been after the gospel topics as he's coming out.

Thomas Stokes [01:09:48] That's where I learned about the gospel topics essay was from him telling us about them.

John Dehlin [01:09:52] Okay. So I've always wanted to know this. Like, once the gospel topics essays start rolling out, what's it like to be a missionary and for the first time start learning some of these things? So you're. So tell us.

Thomas Stokes [01:10:03] Yeah, I learned about all this on my mission. All of it. And it was nuts because I had to use the gospel topic essays to answer questions.

John Dehlin [01:10:12] How did you first learn about the gospel topics essays on your mission statement?

Thomas Stokes [01:10:15] My mission president.

John Dehlin [01:10:16] Okay, so he rolls that out at Zoom conference or what?

Thomas Stokes [01:10:18] Yeah, that conference. He was like, here are all the facts. Oh, one more thing. Just to say how awesome my mission president was. He goes, elders, I want you to know I do not have a testimony of polygamy. Whoa. Yeah, I know.

Guest [01:10:31] Crazy.

John Dehlin [01:10:32] Who is this guy? What was his job before?

Thomas Stokes [01:10:34] He's a lawyer. David Cook, best guy ever.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] From where?

Thomas Stokes [01:10:37] From New York.

John Dehlin [01:10:39] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [01:10:39] He's from. Oh, what part? It was upstate. Upstate New York. Wow. Yeah. Awesome guy. His wife is amazing. His wife is so awesome. It was so funny. She likes. Like, she would kind of run the show, too, and. Cause they weren't sexist. They weren't, you know, they were awesome people. And so he would always, like, look back at his wife, and she'd be like, mm, mm. And so, yeah, they. They were great. So how did I get into that? I don't remember.

John Dehlin [01:11:07] He introduced the gospel topic to you. How did he say it?

Thomas Stokes [01:11:11] I don't remember.

John Dehlin [01:11:12] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [01:11:12] Honestly, he was just like, use this as a research, as a resource. Go to the church website for it. They're honest. You can trust them.

John Dehlin [01:11:20] What made him bring up polygamy to missionaries?

Thomas Stokes [01:11:22] Was it just the article that came out? Okay, that article came out, and everyone around the mission members, non members, inactive people, everyone was talking about Joseph Smith's polygamy. And he was like, I need to take care of this. So that's why he did the conference. That's why he brought up the gospel topic essays. And so I started reading into those to answer questions that my investigators and the people that were inactive, active had. They. They had questions. And so I needed.

John Dehlin [01:11:50] So what was it like reading through those. Do you remember?

Thomas Stokes [01:11:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:53] Were you on your phone? Were you on an iPad?

Thomas Stokes [01:11:55] We were in the church building on their computer. We didn't have smartphones, so.

John Dehlin [01:11:59] Okay, so you had computer access at the church.

Thomas Stokes [01:12:02] Yeah, we would go. We would spend about a couple hours a week on the computer doing Rescate is what it was called. It was like the church in Chile had a system for like organizing who lived where since there were so many members, I think it was called anyway. And yeah, we were allowed to look up the gospel topic essays and other church related content on those computers. And I learned about DNA in the Book of Mormon, the Israelites, you know, Nephites, not really being of Israelite descent. I learned about the Book of Abraham very briefly. I didn't delve too much into that because that one scared me really bad. I learned about polygamy, ton of polygamy. I learned about blacks in the priesthood. I learned about. This wasn't through the Gospel topics essay, but I learned that the Masons that Joseph Smith ripped off the endowment from the Masons on my mission, from some people that I tried to knock doors on. They were like, you guys are Masonic and don't trust it. So I had to ask, I had to do research on that. Basically everything under the sun, I learned about on my mission.

John Dehlin [01:13:13] What was that like for you?

Thomas Stokes [01:13:15] It was difficult, but also I was able to compartmentalize and justify everything.

John Dehlin [01:13:24] So. So this is. I. Oh yeah, I hope audience is okay. Is kind of digging into this a little bit because this is something I've wanted to do for a long time. So the Gospel topics essays, bonus that the church released them. Of course they were forced to release them, but bonus that they released them first time in history that they've openly addressed as their own content. A lot of those controversial issues, we've covered that quite a bit. Here's the thing. It's pretty well known that they're written in a very apologetic way where they're leaving out things that are too troubling or inconvenient. And then they contextualize everything in a way to where it's sort of. I always use the term sort of. These are not the droids you're looking for. And wavy like, everything's fine. Polygamy, everything's fine. Book of Abraham, everything's fine. DNA. And so I've always wondered when a missionary stumbles on them and starts reading them. As long as the whole essay is saying, fact number one, it's going to be fine. Fact number two, it's going to be fine. Fact number three, these are not the drawers you're looking for. Fact number four, this makes the church true. Even more. Like, does a missionary even process it as a problem? Or is it like, this is awesome. I'm learning cool new history, and the church is even more true. Which was it for you?

Thomas Stokes [01:14:38] For me, it was all about an answer. Not a right answer, not a good answer, but an answer. Just getting answers because I had felt the Spirit, quote, unquote, that was enough for me. So logic thrown out the window. As long as I had an answer to give my investigators and myself, I was okay with it. I didn't learn all the dirty details. I only learned as much as the gospel topic essays allowed. The only other thing aside from that was Masonry. They don't talk about masonry in the Gospel. Yeah, I don't think so.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] Temple's too sacred, I'm sure.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:10] Is there?

Thomas Stokes [01:15:12] So I learned about masonry from knocking doors. And someone told me. And then I learned about David Whitmer's An Address to All Believers in Christ.

John Dehlin [01:15:21] The problem with that was that was

Thomas Stokes [01:15:23] honestly the hardest thing because I was about to baptize this guy, and he was like, I just read this. Go check it out. Like, it's all false. But then I convinced him otherwise, and he got baptized. But David.

John Dehlin [01:15:36] David Whitmer's one of the three witnesses.

Thomas Stokes [01:15:38] One of the three witnesses, they always say, none of the three witnesses ever deny their testimony of the Book of Mormon, which more or less is true. It's true. But David Whitmer, at the end of his life, came out with an address to set the record straight. And he said he reaffirmed his testimony, the Book of Mormon, but he also reiterated that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet. What really hurt me was in one section he talks about the way they changed the Book of Commandments, the way they changed the Revelations. They went back and said, Joseph Smith originally said, or God. God originally said that Joseph Smith is my servant and he is a translator and this is where his authority ends. But they went back later and changed certain sections of the Doctrine and Covenants to include more responsibilities, more revelation, more information about Joseph Smith and his power and abilities to make it seem like he was a bigger deal. And David Whitmer calls Joseph out. He calls him out on the priesthood. Them creating a Melchizedek priesthood.

John Dehlin [01:16:47] Explain that.

Thomas Stokes [01:16:48] Yeah. So before it was just the priesthood. It was the power of God to baptize. And we're good. I'm not historian, and I know you know more, so you can Correct me,

John Dehlin [01:16:57] but how you processed it, is all

Thomas Stokes [01:16:58] that how I processed it? Yeah. I only. I actually didn't learn a ton about this until Mormon stories with Grant Palmer. I listened to that episode. But what I learned on my mission was that Joseph Smith, you know, the way he changed the name of the church, the way he invented the Melchizedek priesthood after the fact, you know, and just like popped it out of nowhere, the way he went back and changed sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, that's all I really learned about.

John Dehlin [01:17:27] Two quick things. So we just did an episode with John Larsen on the prophecies for the Lamanites and how the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants got changed. Check that out. That's a really good one. But also, just to reiterate, we're all taught that, like Joseph Smith has the visit from John the Baptist and gets the Aaronic priesthood through laying out of hands prior to the church even being formed or right around that time, and that very similarly, Peter, James, and John ordained the Melchizedek priesthood. The truth is, there's no evidence that the Melchizedek priesthood was ever ordained to anyone. There's no date for the Melchizedek priesthood, so there's no even date to commemorate it. And none of the people around during those first several years of the church, including David Whitmer, knew anything about there ever being a Melchizedek priesthood. So that whole Melchizedek priesthood thing, like you just said, was invented after the fact and then written backwards into the history. And this is super weird because, by the way, the Book of Mormon mentions nothing about Melchizedek priesthood. So basically, what we think has been the everlasting Gospel from Adam to the present never changes. It never changes. It's the restoration of all things. What actually was happening is from 1830, actually 1828, all the way through to 1844, Joseph is developing new and new and new ideas. And then what we've done is written them back into the history as if it was that way all along, when in reality, that whole Melchizedek priesthood thing was made up. And David Whitmer, in his pamphlet, calls him out. It calls him out on that, and that's a big deal. And so you noticed that as a

Thomas Stokes [01:19:11] missionary, and so that. That's.

John Dehlin [01:19:14] Why were you kind of shaking your head and you. You were experiencing some feelings there.

Sierra Stokes [01:19:19] So when we start talking about when we began dating, we'll get into this more. But I've learned a lot of my church history through Thomas. Because just with my upbringing, I didn't have a lot of interest in knowing every little thing about the church. I've never been that involved. And so anything having to do with Joseph Smith just blows my mind because he just sounds like such a crackpot, and people just read into it so much, and I'm like, do we really believe that this guy was genuine and we're gonna like, base an entire religion and organized foundation on him? Like, yeah. Anytime Thomas tells me something new, I'm like, are we really, like, did you

Thomas Stokes [01:19:58] really believe this one?

Sierra Stokes [01:19:59] Like, not to be condescending towards him or towards our family or anything, but it just. It really does amaze me. I'm like, this guy, I feel like you can see right through him. He's just. He's insane. He's a con man. But here we are.

Thomas Stokes [01:20:10] Through an outside lens, Mormonism is kind of whack.

Sierra Stokes [01:20:14] It is, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:15] But as a missionary. So what'd you do with that pamphlet?

Thomas Stokes [01:20:18] I read it online and I.

John Dehlin [01:20:21] Did they restrict your access to what you could read? Could you. CCS letter? Could you see Mormonism?

Thomas Stokes [01:20:26] I could have if I wanted. Wanted to, but I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:20:28] Did you know about the ces?

Thomas Stokes [01:20:29] I did not know about the CSA

John Dehlin [01:20:30] stories at the time. Okay.

Thomas Stokes [01:20:32] Didn't know about any of that. So I.

John Dehlin [01:20:35] 2015, you're saying? Yeah. What month?

Thomas Stokes [01:20:38] About, let's see, when he got baptized, it would have been towards the tail end of my mission, probably around March. Okay, March of. Wait, no, that. The address to all believers would have been March of 2016.

John Dehlin [01:20:51] Yeah. So I'm just gonna. And again, I just always like to note the bubble, the Mormon. The great Mormon bubble. I communicated, you know, February or whatever of 2015. It literally was tweeted by the New York Times. It was a global story. The CES letter was a huge deal by 2015. And here you are, having been raised in the church, young, Internet savvy. It's 2015, 2016, and you had never heard of any podcast or PDF or any content that would have ever caused you to wonder. And that just shows how much power the church has in limiting and controlling the information that is available on everyone's phone for years prior. But somehow they have this lock on behavior that you would never even learn about, let alone learn about its existence, let alone actually read or consume any content that could possibly question your faith because you're into 2016. I mean, the November 201515 policy happens on your mission. Yeah. So anyway, I just had to. I had to note that yeah, it is kind of stunning.

Thomas Stokes [01:22:03] It was all under the umbrella of anti Mormon literature. So I didn't even go there. And to me, reading the David Whitmer's address, that was anti Mormon literature. And I was reading it in order to answer questions, and that was the only reason I was even getting into it. And it did shake my testimony, but all I did was just reiterate. I was like, hey, man, I know this shook your testimony, but remember, he didn't deny his testimony, the Book of Mormon, therefore it's true. This is the true church, because this is the biggest church. None of the other branches, none of the other dissenters of Joseph Smith lasted very long. Even Community of Christ isn't that big.

John Dehlin [01:22:42] Big.

Thomas Stokes [01:22:42] We're bigger. Therefore, we're right and we have the line of the priesthood. And I told him. I told him I could trace my line of the priesthood all the way back to Jesus Christ. And. And I did. I got that on my mission. And I thought that was so cool. And so that's what I. That's what I told him. And he felt better and got baptized. Now he's inactive. Talked to him a couple months ago. Makes me happy. He was like, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. I was like, me neither. He was like, I love you, though. You're great. And we expressed some good feelings and it felt good to. Pretty much everyone I baptized is inactive now, so that makes me happy.

John Dehlin [01:23:16] You're jumping ahead.

Thomas Stokes [01:23:17] Sorry, no jumping ahead.

John Dehlin [01:23:20] So in terms of your doubts, how do you summarize what you did with these doubts?

Thomas Stokes [01:23:26] So CeCe reminded me of this, my mission president during that polygamy conference. He introduced us to the concept of a shelf, which everyone uses now. And so it's nothing new, but if you have a doubt, you put it on your shelf. You don't look at it. Occasionally, you can take it off your shelf, study it, read it, read about it, pray about it, think about it. If you don't get an answer, just put it back on your shelf. Don't worry about it, because the church is true. So I took that to heart and I put all that stuff on my shelf.

John Dehlin [01:23:59] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:23:59] Yeah. So that's what. That's. That's how I handled it. It.

John Dehlin [01:24:02] It's basically the turn it off. The turn it off method.

Thomas Stokes [01:24:04] Yeah. Turn it off the book.

John Dehlin [01:24:06] More like a light switch.

Guest [01:24:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:09] So we've got some fun comments coming in. I just. They're worth sharing. So Cam writes, I only read and heard of the CES letter this year, so we're in 20. We're recording in 2021.

Thomas Stokes [01:24:20] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:24:20] Cam says, I only heard of the CES letter and read it this year, coincidentally, also the year I left the church. What do you know? Thanks. Cam is saying, I didn't Hear about the CES letter until 2020. So that's like five years after it was created. And it just, it's just amazing how much control the church has on people's mind, their behavior, their information, their resources, what they talk about. Because the, the CS letter has done massive damage to probably hundreds of thousands of people's testimonies. So the fact that somehow the church can just still keep that from people, people is really just. It really is mind blowing. Jonathan Anderson writes, if something is true, you'll be encouraged to read opposing views. Find out for yourself. Yeah, so like if, if you believe in evolution, you're like, yeah, read the critics, see how silly and dumb they are, and then read the science and figure it out for yourself.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:17] Try your own feeling about it.

John Dehlin [01:25:19] Someone who believes in evidence is not afraid of crackpot opposing. Counter opposing views to the evidence.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:26] So true.

John Dehlin [01:25:26] Jonathan goes on to write, if you're being manipulated, you'll be discouraged from any outside review books or works. And that's where Stephen Hassan's sort of. It's called the bite model.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:41] Yeah, bite model.

Sierra Stokes [01:25:42] They.

John Dehlin [01:25:42] They control the information so that they can control your thoughts.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:46] Is that the cult behavior?

John Dehlin [01:25:48] Behavior, thoughts, emotions, they basically control. They control your behavior by controlling the information you receive so that they can control your thoughts and manipulate you with emotion so that you never would ever think, you would never even learn about the existence of the CES letter such that you would never, of course, then never read it. Or if you did hear about it, it's that evil. Jeremy Runnels wrote it. He was a bad person.

Thomas Stokes [01:26:13] Such a bad guy, abused people.

John Dehlin [01:26:15] And so, you know, he was excommunicated, so definitely don't read that.

Sierra Stokes [01:26:19] Yeah,

John Dehlin [01:26:22] let's see. I was just gonna see anyway. So. Yeah. So LC writes, didn't find the CES letter until I started looking for other answers to questions. Brian May, who I think is the guitarist for Queen. So it's super cool that the lead guitars for Queen. I'm kidding. What?

Thomas Stokes [01:26:42] That's his name, isn't it?

John Dehlin [01:26:43] I think I was joking. The lead guitars for Queen is listening. Brian May, he writes, same 2020. Yet some of my siblings had heard about them much earlier and didn't think to share. Yeah, so even with. That's another thing. Even within families, you can learn about very troubling things. But you wouldn't dare tell your spouse or your siblings or your.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:02] That's where we're at with my family.

John Dehlin [01:27:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's all fine. We're not even. I'm not even beating up the church. This is just the way it rolls. And so we're.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:11] I get that.

John Dehlin [01:27:11] So anyway, so back to your mission.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:13] So, yeah, the only thing I have left to say is that I don't want to go into too much detail because a lot of it's not my place to disclose, but I was in church one day, my mission president and his wife texted my companion and said, is, we need to speak with Thomas alone. And they came all the way out to my area, brought me into a different classroom, gave me some news about my family that was very traumatic. It was hard for all of us, the whole family. And I just remember being there with him and just bawling my eyes out. And that affected me a ton on my mission. This is part of why I love my mission president so much, because he was so kind to me throughout the whole thing and. And I don't think I received special treatment because I really feel like he treated everyone specially. But he did help me out through some family trauma that went on that really I should have gone home for. I should have been there to support my siblings, to support my parents and, you know, so we could. To work it all out together to process it. But what did I do, John? I turned it off. You know, I said, atonement, we're good. I'm here to preach the gospel. I'm setting an example for my family. And this is a test of faith. This is where I should be. I'm going to use the atonement and feel better and. But really all I did was just not think about it. I just blocked it out and I bottled it all up and didn't get to process everything that my family.

John Dehlin [01:28:51] Were you calling home weekly by this point?

Thomas Stokes [01:28:53] No.

John Dehlin [01:28:53] Yeah. So weekly email. So for the most of the history of Mormonism, you were only allowed to call home twice a year, Mother's Day and Christmas.

Thomas Stokes [01:29:05] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:29:06] And otherwise no one could call you and you couldn't call anyone. I learned about the death of two of my grandparents weeks after their death.

Thomas Stokes [01:29:15] I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [01:29:15] While I was on my mission, my mission president's like, oh, I forgot your grandma died. Oh, your grandpa died too. Like, it was this weird, weird. Like that's just because you could, you know, and the. And the letters took forever to get There in Latin America. And email. We didn't have email. That's how old I am. But anyway, so. But, but just this idea of really traumatic things happen and you're not supposed to go home.

Thomas Stokes [01:29:36] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:29:36] Even if there's a funeral of a very close family member, you're not supposed to go home and you're not allowed to call home. So even when this traumatic thing happened, did you get to even call home?

Thomas Stokes [01:29:45] No, no, I did not call home. I just did emails. Yeah. It was really once a week. Yep. He gave me special permit. He gave me permission to read the emails beforehand, but that's it. And then the next week I, I just kept up the normal correspondence. But so much of it was avoided. I think maybe they didn't want to bother me while I was serving the Lord. So I didn't get. I didn't get a lot of information and it was really difficult. But one more.

John Dehlin [01:30:18] I'm so sorry that happened.

Sierra Stokes [01:30:19] Mention that it's something. Yeah. Something that he should have had counseling for on the mission. And that didn't even happen. Kind of just because it fell through the ground.

Thomas Stokes [01:30:29] Yeah. My mission.

Sierra Stokes [01:30:30] Which is insane.

Thomas Stokes [01:30:31] I love my mission president again. But he, he. Later in my mission, he assigned me with a kid that was having issues that, that would see a psychologist. And he was like, I, I put him with you because you had seen a mission psychologist as well. And I was like, what? I never saw Mission psycholog. I didn't set you up with that. And I was like, no, I've been

Sierra Stokes [01:30:49] fighting this by myself for a year.

Thomas Stokes [01:30:52] So I was just kind of left, you know, to process everything myself and to hide it and to, you know, I spoke with my family a little bit, but it was all so centered on the gospel that I didn't get to have a normal human healing experience reaction to it. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't have a normal reaction to it until after my mission.

John Dehlin [01:31:12] And on the one hand, I'm really glad to hear you had a really cool, good mission president because we don't want to just talk bad about everyone all the time. Stories. There's a good mission president. I'm happy that you had a good experience. And it's fair to say that the church has changed this policy about calling home, where now you can call home once a week.

Thomas Stokes [01:31:29] I think that's great.

John Dehlin [01:31:29] But they only did that because we beat them up for at least a full good 10, 15 years. Talking about how cult like that was. It's scary that you could only call home twice. A year and they couldn't call you. So the church did that, honestly, because we embarrassed them to the point where they had had to.

Thomas Stokes [01:31:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. My. Yeah. You were saying about good, good mission, President. Honestly, most people and leaders that I dealt with in the church have been amazing. So it's literally the doctrine and the high up lies and secrets that. That they're hiding, that's what got me.

John Dehlin [01:32:08] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:08] So, yeah, that's my mission.

Thomas Performs a Song About His Mission

John Dehlin [01:32:09] You want to sing a song?

Thomas Stokes [01:32:10] Yeah, I'm gonna sing a song about my mission, if that's okay.

John Dehlin [01:32:13] Tell us what, what it's about as you're. As you're getting set up.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:15] Yeah, this song is called Dirty.

John Dehlin [01:32:17] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:18] It is called Dirty because me and my brother like to do covers. And we were doing a cover of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana, if you know that song.

John Dehlin [01:32:28] Dirty Diana.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:31] Yeah. And we were doing it. It was awesome. It was such a cool cover. And we're digging it. And then I wrote my own lyrics to it. So, yeah, this is called Dirty. It's about my mission and specific events that happened to me on and after my mission, my relationship, my kind of initial frustration that maybe some people didn't believe what was so clearly, you know, true, true fact. And. Yeah, let me.

John Dehlin [01:33:02] So this is. This is Thomas Stokes as Big Cricket performing Dirty about his mission. Yeah, I'm trying to sound like npr. Am I pulling sound?

Thomas Stokes [01:33:14] Fantastic. All right, here it goes.

Guest [01:33:47] Walking for the weak souls they're the ones that need it most Push them through the door and tell them everything you know Save it in a black book write it down and have a look Thinking about the past the way you know you never should

Thomas Stokes [01:34:03] and only

Guest [01:34:05] one man speaking A hush, don't whisper Quiet, open your ears

John Dehlin [01:34:16] I

Guest [01:34:21] spoke with reason in.

Sierra Stokes [01:34:30] And you.

Guest [01:34:35] Won't believe it Though you never did, you never did we're all the same. And Ernie, you know it's not that hard Rob me of all I'm worth and more I know who you are and only one man speaking Hush, don't whisper Quiet, open your ears and I spoke with reason. And you. Won't believe it Though you never did, you never did we're all the same so tell me who's to blame for what we all have made because we're all, all the same we're all the same so tell me who's to blame

Thomas Stokes [01:36:16] for what we all have made because

Guest [01:36:20] we're all the same.

Thomas Stokes [01:36:32] Sam, There you go.

John Dehlin [01:37:21] Yeah, that's Dirty. We got a clap.

Thomas Stokes [01:37:23] That one is on the episode. It's the first song of the ep. It's on Band Camp.

John Dehlin [01:37:29] Does EP have a net? Your EP have a name?

Thomas Stokes [01:37:31] What?

John Dehlin [01:37:32] Does your EP have a name?

Thomas Stokes [01:37:33] Easy Way Out. Oh, the name of my EP is Easy Way Out.

John Dehlin [01:37:37] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [01:37:38] And it consists of three songs, all three of which I will be playing today.

John Dehlin [01:37:41] And what were you trying to communicate with that song?

Thomas Stokes [01:37:45] It's frustrating because I'm speaking with reason. I say I spoke with reason and you won't believe it.

Guest [01:37:50] It.

Thomas Stokes [01:37:51] But then I say, though you never did, we never did. We're all the same kind of. Everyone believes what they want to, despite what the facts are. There's nothing you can do about it. In the verses, I mentioned walking for the weak souls and how I was so pushy. Push him through the door. Tell him everything you know. It was all about just me doing what I was supposed to be doing. Shut up and listen. One man speaking. Hush, don't whisper. You know, General Conference Church Mission, you're supposed to listen to your. Your authorities, your leaders and. And. And just the problems that that has, you know.

John Dehlin [01:38:32] Love it.

Thomas Stokes [01:38:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:33] Good stuff.

Thomas Stokes [01:38:33] Thank you. Appreciate it.

Sierra's Mormon Story and Upbringing

John Dehlin [01:38:35] All right, well, you guys have all been super patient. Cece, you've been extra patient because we've been focusing on missing so far on Thomas's story. But you've got a story too, right?

Sierra Stokes [01:38:48] I do, yes.

John Dehlin [01:38:49] So now is. Now's the time to turn back to you, and we want to hear your Mormon story.

Sierra Stokes [01:38:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:55] So any. Anything you want to say before we jump into that, or should we just jump into your story?

Sierra Stokes [01:39:01] No, I think let's just jump in and then I'll come together, hopefully, as we go here.

John Dehlin [01:39:05] Okay.

Sierra Stokes [01:39:06] So my background, I was. Was born in Green River, Wyoming, and then my parents got divorced when I was five. At the time, I had three older sisters, and we moved to Star Valley, Wyoming. So I am Wyoming born and raised. Lived there my whole life. And the divorce was ugly, which I think shaped us in a lot of ways. And I think that plays a part in how some of my family decided to stay in the church and how some of us didn't. You know, for some of my siblings, it was a really great source of comfort and a way of healing, which is great. I think that's the case for a lot of people, Thomas's family included. And so, you know, we always try and respect that, even if it's hard to not have our feelings completely understood. And so we got up to Star Valley, Wyoming. My mom's parents, my grandparents, they. They were Mormon at the time. And so we started going back to church with them. And again, I would have been very young. I do remember a little bit of primary, but not a ton. I think I have the same problem as Thomas, where some trauma leads to gaps in your memory. And so all of that is a little bit hazy to me. But I do know that we would go to church with my grandparents, and that's actually where my mom met my stepdad, her second husband. And a little bit of context, he's just dad. He's raised me since I was five, and he really took all of us under his wing. So moving forward, I'll probably just say dad, but I do mean stepdad. And they met at church, which is really great. So I'll always be grateful that we were attending at that time because, you know, they got married, he started to take care of us. They actually have two sons together. So I have two little half brothers with a 12 year gap between me. I was the baby for 12 years, and then I got booted. And

Guest [01:41:15] we.

Sierra Stokes [01:41:17] Our attendance was definitely a little bit more spotty growing up and going through high school and whatnot. Like I said, I had a couple of siblings. My eldest sister specifically, she's still in the church with her husband. We didn't mention this.

Thomas Stokes [01:41:34] We will, we will.

Sierra Stokes [01:41:35] Okay. All right. I don't want to jump ahead either, so I'll back up. But my oldest sister, she is still in the church. They live in pg, so we see them a lot. Yes.

Thomas Stokes [01:41:45] Pleasant Grove.

Sierra Stokes [01:41:46] Yep. And we have a really good relationship with them. But she is the only one that I would say is still 100% in and involved. And that was all through my childhood that she was really the steady one. And then me and my two other. Other older sisters were kind of problem

John Dehlin [01:42:09] children, if you will, which to Mormons can mean something very different than the people never raised in the church.

Thomas Stokes [01:42:16] Yeah, it's.

John Dehlin [01:42:17] When you say rowdy and, you know, what do you mean?

Sierra Stokes [01:42:21] Yeah. Like, in my case specifically, it just meant having, you know, I had a lot of boyfriends going through high school. I was always interested in boys and sure of myself as far as, like, sexuality goes, which I know is something that you're supposed to oppress and kind of, you know, keep that down until you're married. Right. And so right off the bat, I would say starting in my teenage years, that set me apart from, you know, your typical Mormon. I would definitely say Jack Mormon is the term we want to use.

John Dehlin [01:42:59] And it's just explaining me. You really. I mean, I've never Heard it driven home so clearly and impactfully. You're basically saying that to be an orthodox Mormon is to be suppressed and oppressed and sex sexually dysfunctional.

Sierra Stokes [01:43:18] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:43:19] That's to be a well behaving, orthodox, healthy Mormon. And to be a bad Mormon, to be a fallen Mormon, to be a Jack Mormon is to own your sexuality and to have a healthy relationship, to be sure of it, with your body and your sexuality. Is that what I heard you say?

Sierra Stokes [01:43:37] Yes, that's it. Nailed it on the head.

John Dehlin [01:43:40] So I don't mean to be rude or glib, but I really do think there's something to what you just said.

Sierra Stokes [01:43:45] Oh, yeah. I'm very passionate about it.

John Dehlin [01:43:47] Real and powerful.

Thomas Stokes [01:43:48] Can I just say, like, I thought I was so good and perfect and, like, looking back, I. I was so repressed. It's. It's undeniable. And. And CC tells me stories. I behaved well. CeCe tells me stories all the time. And I'm like, that's so healthy. Like, you had that you were able to talk to your mom about this stuff and, like, about, you know, sexuality and growing up and. And where I. You know, for me, it was like, you. You better not think about it.

Sierra Stokes [01:44:14] You're really not supposed to delve into that world until you're married.

Thomas Stokes [01:44:18] Don't even go there.

Sierra Stokes [01:44:18] But then you're with your spouse, who, if they were raised the exact same way, it's just a mess because neither of you guys know what you're doing, right? And so.

John Dehlin [01:44:26] But that wasn't you.

Sierra Stokes [01:44:27] No, it wasn't. And I got a Thomas through all that, so it.

John Dehlin [01:44:31] In other words, Thomas lucked out. You. Maybe not so much at first. At first, at least. Anyway, sorry.

Thomas Stokes [01:44:38] There's a learning curve.

John Dehlin [01:44:39] I'm jumping ahead. I'm jumping ahead.

Sierra Stokes [01:44:42] We'll get into all that, too. We'll give you all the details. Not all the details.

Thomas Stokes [01:44:47] Every single one of them.

Sierra Stokes [01:44:49] So, yeah, going through my high school years again, I use the word rowdy, but I think to anybody outside of the Mormon community, it was just. Just normal teenage behavior. I never got into too much dating.

John Dehlin [01:45:01] Making out with boys.

Sierra Stokes [01:45:03] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:45:03] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:45:03] I. I was not afraid at all of, you know, physical touch. And again, I didn't really get too far into sexual relationships until I was out of high school. Like, even as a teenager, I was like, I don't really want to go there. I feel like I'm too young. But I was always very mature of her. Yeah. But I was at least not afraid to date, hold hands, make out, touch butts. All of that. Not a big. And so a little bit of background. I feel like a lot of people in Utah know of Star Valley because it's not that far. We're right on the border, but we

John Dehlin [01:45:40] kind of have a heavily Mormon part of.

Sierra Stokes [01:45:41] Yes, that's what I was gonna say. It's like the mini Utah of Wyoming. And so Star Valley, right? Yep. Star Valley, Wyoming. So I did still grow up kind of in a Mormon community. It was majority Mormons in my high school of, I want to say, like, 750 students. So small town dynamics kind of played a part in all of that. Small town Mormon dynamics. Like, I did still get hit with, you know, am I being judged? Should I feel ashamed? But luckily, I've always just had the kind of personality where I was like, I don't really care. A little bit rebellious. And so I think that was good for me that I didn't. I don't want to say, fall into the trap, because I don't think it's a trap, but it's just the way that you're expected to, you know, feel if you are, again, a normal teenager doing normal teenager things. But in. In a Mormon mind, a very Mormon mind, it's like, yeah, it's sinful, like you said.

Thomas Stokes [01:46:42] Can I just say that one of the biggest attributes that I admire about Cece is that. That she does not care what other people think, and she is not afraid to live her truth. It's amazing.

John Dehlin [01:46:54] She's also very unmormon.

Thomas Stokes [01:46:56] I've learned so much from her.

John Dehlin [01:46:58] It's healthy. I love it. I'm jealous.

Thomas Stokes [01:47:01] I'm jealous.

John Dehlin [01:47:01] I'm jealous.

Sierra Stokes [01:47:02] Thank you. It worked out because, yeah, we. We really balanced each other out when it came to all of that. So I got through my high school years and I started dating somebody pretty seriously.

John Dehlin [01:47:17] Somebody just made the comment Touching Butts, the musical.

Sierra Stokes [01:47:22] Let's make it happen.

John Dehlin [01:47:23] Thank you, Ace trades.

Thomas Stokes [01:47:24] I'll get to work.

Sierra Stokes [01:47:26] Anyways, so sorry. So I. I started dating somebody pretty seriously. I want to say I was like a year out of high school, and at this point, I was. I feel like as soon as I graduated, I kind of crossed that line into, like, okay, I'm ready to experience sex a little bit more deeply. Like, for me, I felt like I was. I was maturing fast enough. I've always been told that I act older than I am, and so I really do feel that as soon as I graduated, I kind of took that step. And so I started dating this boy pretty seriously. He was a few Years older than me. And it was a short lived relationship because it was not a very healthy relationship. But I did end up moving in with him about a month before we broke up and the relationship ended.

John Dehlin [01:48:16] And now that's after high school.

Sierra Stokes [01:48:19] Yes, this is after high school. But I was 19, so pretty, pretty young, pretty green. And I know that my family had qualms with me moving in with him because that is a pretty big step.

John Dehlin [01:48:33] And it's also very. Not Mormon, right?

Sierra Stokes [01:48:35] Yes. Yeah, yeah. And in hindsight, like, maybe I wouldn't have done it. I really was just kind of diving head first into, you know, more adult relationships. But I've always been very fortunate to not ever feel ostracized by my family if they do disagree with me. My parents, Thomas mentioned that I've always been able to talk with my mom about anything that would be, quote, unquote, sinful. And that's always been a big blessing. And then my parents were actually, I want to say, completely out of the church while I was going through high school. After my baby brother was born, my first baby brother, I think is when they really took that step of leaving. And I would have to verify all of this with them. I've never really sat down and had a conversation. And as a teenager, I just don't think I was paying as close attention as I could have been. But yeah, that helped a lot that at the time that my brother was born and I was going into my teen years and I was getting a little bit more rascally, I still always felt like I could talk to them because they weren't holding me to any Mormon standards. They were like, we just need you to be safe, you know, let us know where you are. But I never felt like I couldn't bring boyfriends home to meet them. Or if I did feel like I made a mistake, I was always able to be very open with my mom,

Thomas Stokes [01:50:04] like a health.

Sierra Stokes [01:50:04] And I'm just so, so grateful for that. Yeah, I think that really helps. Super healthy moving forward. When I did move in with my boyfriend, you know, that didn't change. That dynamic stayed the same. They maybe thought that it wasn't the best idea, but they supported me in learning because, you know, I was starting my life and I was a young adult and they were like, okay, this is how it works. She's gonna do it herself and she's gonna learn and we'll just be there whenever she needs us, which was really amazing. And that goes for my parents and all three of my sisters. Even my, my TBM sister. She, you know, looking back and Thomas has told me that while I was dating this boy, they had things to say and they were definitely uncertain. But, yeah, our family dynamics are really admirable, I would say, in that at the end of the day, day, it's like you just need to show support and we're all kind of mother hens, but it's like, you know, let the baby birds leave the nest and that way they'll always come back to you. You know, it's not like you leave and never see them again because you push them away. It's like we're. We're all very, very close. And I think part of that had to do with my parents divorce and part of that had to do with my parents leaving the church and again, not holding us to those standards and those expectations because I feel like sometimes sad that instead of bringing a family together, that just like, everybody disperses and everybody's driven apart from one another, you know, so we're really grateful for that.

John Dehlin [01:51:33] I love this. We're taking our time on this episode, but I'm not ashamed by it because this is important stuff. So I'm thinking about what I was raised to think is the ideal

Guest [01:51:44] role

John Dehlin [01:51:44] of a Mormon parent. And I'm. I'm reminded of a marriage and family class I took at BYU by a man named Brent Thompson. Top. Okay. And I remember him literally saying, he, like, posed this dilemma to the class. It was, if you're a Mormon parent and you know that your daughter is about to have sex, what is your role? And he literally said that. And I. I don't remember the exact logic, but I'm guessing it had something to do with sex being next to murder in terms of severity.

Sierra Stokes [01:52:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:52:15] Because what he said was, is I would. I would literally. If you had the choice between letting them, letting her go to have sex because you know that she's going to go have sex, or locking her in a room against her will. He taught that you should lock them in a room against their will, keep them from leaving because there's. There's no worse possible thing. And so when I translate that into, like, even how I, as like a super liberal, progressive Mormon dad was with my own daughters just five or six or seven years ago. It's like, you have a curfew. Where have you been? Did you get home late?

Sierra Stokes [01:52:53] I need to know everything.

John Dehlin [01:52:54] Did you have sex? I didn't say, did you have sex, but it's like, were you alone in a car? Like, I was so terrified that My, My daughter would, you know, make out or have sex again. Even as a non believing, progressive, liberal Mormon, that I really alienated my daughter, made her feel like she had to lie to me, made her feel shame. To this day, that haunts her. And that is what I thought was being the best possible Mormon parent. Your parents would probably be viewed by orthodox Mormons as being the worst. You're not cutting off your daughter for moving in with a guy she's shacking up. She's violating the law of chastity. And you're like taking. Talking openly about it about, like what you're probably talking about, like, what's healthy contraception and how. Yeah. How. What's consent and how to be safe. That's like the most irresponsible from an orthodox Mormon standpoint. That's the most irresponsible bad parenting you can do. And I'm just here to say I think I scarred at least one or two of my children around sexuality in very real and meaningful ways. You had the bad parents and it, it raised you with a healthy view on yourself and your body and sexuality.

Sierra Stokes [01:54:13] Yeah. Oh, yeah. And like I said, do you think

John Dehlin [01:54:16] I'm overstating that or.

Guest [01:54:18] No?

Sierra Stokes [01:54:18] No. We talk about this all the time as parents now. We're like, we cannot do that the same way. And I think part of it too is that my mom actually conceived my oldest sister out of wedlock. And she was, gosh, I want to say she got pregnant as a Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:54:38] As a Mormon woman.

Sierra Stokes [01:54:40] I mean, she was raised Mormon, but

Thomas Stokes [01:54:42] kind of the same.

Sierra Stokes [01:54:43] We got lucky in my family that it went back at least two generations. My grandparents were also very understanding and chill. They might have not been as open about, you know, talking about sexuality, but they, like you said, you with your daughters, I think they, they were able to not traumatize or scar their children when it came to sexuality. Yeah. Like, when my mom got pregnant and wasn't like, okay, you need to have an abortion or you need to, you know, put this baby up for adoption, it was just like, okay, like, you're gonna be a mom now. And I, I love my grandparents. Yeah. And so I think that translated all through my mom's parenting. She was like, you know what? I did it.

Guest [01:55:28] It.

Sierra Stokes [01:55:28] I might not recommend that you do it the same way, but I will love you no matter how it happens. My sister, same thing. She conceived out of wedlock. She's married now, and they have two kids. And it's like, it's working. It works well, and it works well. Like that all the time. But you know, it's just, it's foreign.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] Yeah. Recently I had, so I've had so many people reach out to me to talk about Mormon adoption because if there's a teenage pregnancy and Mormonism, historically within orthodox Mormonism, there's this massive pressure to force the teenage girl to adopt, to give the child away for adoption. Because I think the church likes supplying childless couples with children. And they believe that, quote, a father and mother should raise a kid. And so they have pressured tens of thousands of, of young Mormon teen girls to always give up their kids for adoption. And, and I, I think I've, I've corresponded with several young women that wish they hadn't been pressured that way.

Sierra Stokes [01:56:30] Yeah, it's so, it's heartbreaking because they make you feel like you just couldn't possibly do it well if you're not married. But it's like it's not that case. The case. Especially if you are in a relationship with the person that you, you know, happen to get pregnant with, even if you're not married, but you're in a healthy relationship. Like why couldn't you be parents? So that whole thing. Yeah, that's really, it breaks my heart.

John Dehlin [01:56:52] But one more thing. We have a comment from a listener. Sam says also it's very LDS to cut off family members if they do anything the church doesn't like. So in orthodox Mormonism, if a daughter decides to go, I probably would have

Sierra Stokes [01:57:09] gotten cut off, right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:10] With her boyfriend. And to be sexually active. There are family systems in orthodox Mormonism where that daughter would be, be potentially cut off or ostracized or judged or marginalized or made to feel unwelcome in the family system.

Sierra Stokes [01:57:25] Yeah, Yeah. I feel like that's the exact opposite of what you should do, you know, like, okay, my child is going off and making these big decisions. I don't know if it's going to work out. But because you do have that, that hesitance, keep them close, make them feel like they still can come to you, which is what ended up happening. Like I said, the relationship did not end well. There was a lot of toxicity there. And so I did end up having a pretty ugly breakup. And I was just so lucky to have every single one of my family members to fall back on. Like my brother in law drove up to where I was living with my boyfriend. He helped me pack all of my things in like under an hour. And then all the rest of my family was out of town. Town, but they were in Utah and So my brother in law drove me up to Utah and everybody just like fell on me all at once. And like, I just don't think I, like, I don't think I'd be here if that wasn't the case. You know, I'd probably still be an emotional wreck, or I'd probably still be going through, you know, boyfriends who aren't that good to me. But instead it's like my family let me do my thing. And then when it did backfire, like they thought it probably would, I didn't face judgment. I just faced a lot of comfort and support, which is amazing.

Thomas Stokes [01:58:51] So not to say that, like, I mean, this is just me speaking from my experience, I feel like my family would have done the same thing. But as a whole, there are enough families in the church that would cut someone off for like, there are plenty of good families out there. But, but the system does kind of favor cutting anything unchristlike out of your life. And that's an issue. That's all.

Sierra Stokes [01:59:16] Yeah, I think Thomas, like he said, they probably would have reacted the same way with any of his sisters, but just because they weren't even raised with that same freedom, you could say in the first place, it just wasn't an issue to start with. But yeah, my parents are always.

Thomas Stokes [01:59:31] We just repressed. That's, that's, that's how you keep them in line, just repress them.

Sierra Stokes [01:59:36] So, yeah, my parents, just one more time I'll say it. They were so good about giving us freedom and we were always welcome to come to them. I remember my mom, I think I got a UTI actually. And I don't know if it was from having sex and then not using the restroom or if I, I'm just kind of prone to UTIs in the first place. And I knew that she had UTI pills, the antibiotics that they give you, because she's prone to them as well. And so I was like, mom, I think I have a black bladder infection. And like, can I have some of your pills? And of course it clicked right away. She was like, I know how you get uchi. And I was like, yeah. But she, you know, this is just an example. Like, she didn't withhold the antibiotics from me. She didn't like, make me go into the doctor and explain myself. She was just like, okay, if this is what it is, I'll help you. And like, we just left it at that. And that memory just popped into my head. But that's like a really good example of how my parents were always, always Just willing to help and I was always able to come back to them. So yeah, so that's my teenage years up until. I want to say I was almost 20 when I had my breakup and I went up to Utah for about a week just to recover.

Thomas Stokes [02:00:49] Oh, do we want to tell the, do we want to get into all the like the brisket fat story and all that or is that not important?

Sierra Stokes [02:00:57] I feel like we could maybe revisit that when we get into. When we started dating.

Thomas Stokes [02:01:00] Okay.

Thomas and Sierra Meet and Begin Dating

Sierra Stokes [02:01:02] Anyways, so I got up to Utah and I stayed there. I can't remember if it was over a long weekend or if it was

John Dehlin [02:01:08] Utah

Sierra Stokes [02:01:10] because my brother in law drove me up there. This would be right after my breakup.

John Dehlin [02:01:14] But why did you go to Utah?

Thomas Stokes [02:01:15] Well, because Cheyenne called you, right?

Sierra Stokes [02:01:17] Yeah. My brother in law and my sister, they were still in Pleasant Grove at the time. They've been there there the whole time we've been in Utah and they were like, yeah, come up with us. Like we have an extra room. Stay with us.

Thomas Stokes [02:01:29] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:01:29] And sanctuary. And my parents were coming from a vacation in Arizona and they were going to be stopping in Utah as well just to visit the grandbabies and all that.

John Dehlin [02:01:37] Plus it's Zion. It's Oz. Right. It's like Dorothy going to Oz.

Sierra Stokes [02:01:40] Like this is the perfect place to come.

Thomas Stokes [02:01:42] This is the place.

Sierra Stokes [02:01:43] So yeah, everybody was just going to be coincidentally convening there anyways for like family visitation and stuff. And so they're like, you need to come up and be with everybody body. So yeah, I kind of, I wouldn't say I got back on my feet. I think I spent most of that week like crying and distraught. And then from there my second or sorry, third oldest sister. So the one closest to me in age, her and her husband and their. I want to say he was about six months old. We're just moving up to Colorado and it was about the same distance from their town to Utah as it was from Star Valley to Utah. And so Utah was just kind of the central, the central hub. So they were like, hey, you'll be able to come back and visit often, but why don't you move up with us to Colorado? We have an extra room. If you want, you can get a job and you can like stay with us indefinitely or you can just like recover and get back on your feet. So I was up there for about a month.

Guest [02:02:44] Month.

Sierra Stokes [02:02:44] And that's what I did. I didn't go looking for a job or anything. I just hung out with my sister, got a lot of aunt time with their baby. And then about a month after I was up in Colorado, everybody convened up there. My family likes to visit each other all the time. And so everybody planned a big family trip up to Colorado again. And my sister and her husband invited Thomas.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:09] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:03:10] Because he enters the scene again.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:12] Plot twist.

Sierra Stokes [02:03:14] We didn't mention this.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:15] My oldest brother married her oldest sister, so that's how we knew each other. We had known each other this whole time. We met at the wedding. At their wedding when I was 16 and she was 12. So we go to. My brother invites me to Colorado to hang out with them, and we. I see Cece there. I see Cece there, and we hit it off. Where we've always been friends, but we. We just hung out that weekend.

Sierra Stokes [02:03:44] We've always had great friend chemistry. Like, obviously, nothing happened when I was 12 and he was 16. I thought he was cute. But when we first met at our siblings weddings, it was just like, oh, you know, another friend in the family kind of thing. And then, you know, he was dating separately through high school. I was dating separately through high school because we weren't even on the same, like, timeline for dating in high school.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:08] Everyone always joked about us getting married. Married. But in my mind, I was like, oh, no, she's not active.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:13] It was an ongoing joke in the family, but it was definitely just a joke.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:16] Nobody was like, never marry Cece. She doesn't go to church.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:19] Yes. So I want to say Matt gave Thomas full disclosure for the Colorado trip that I had just gone through a really ugly breakup, and he was, like, off limits. Yeah. Like, don't even try and go there. Which, in Thomas's mind, I don't think that was his first.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:36] No, not at all.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:36] All plan of action anyways. But they just threw that disclosure out there, which makes me think that maybe they had a little bit of foresight. They were like, they could hit it off well, but she needs time to heal.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:47] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:48] So that's kind of when we reconnected and we.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:52] We drove.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:53] Really realized that our friend chemistry was strong. Like, we just get along so well. We can talk like friends. We can talk like partners. Like.

Thomas Stokes [02:05:01] Like lovers.

John Dehlin [02:05:01] And you're how old? You're how old did the point.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:06] Oh, in Colorado, I would have been 20. Still. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:05:10] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:05:11] Or no, you turned 20. Yeah. That summer.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:14] Really quick. Something that we didn't ask about. Did you have hobbies or interests in high school? Talents, like, things. Things that got you excited, you know, pursuits. And I don't know if we even talked about Your faith or your testimony? Let's just say we kind of.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:32] We kind of skipped over that.

John Dehlin [02:05:33] Yeah. Do you want to. Do you want to go back and talk about any of that?

Sierra Stokes [02:05:35] Yeah, for sure. So. Because I was, again, kind of a Jack Mormon, I wouldn't say that. I did have a very strong testimony.

John Dehlin [02:05:45] Awful term.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:46] Like what? I don't know a better term, but that's healthy.

John Dehlin [02:05:48] So.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:49] Yeah, I just wasn't very involved in the church. My best friend was and still is very Mormon. She served a mission, but luckily she. I wouldn't say she ever tried to convert me. Like, we. We would go to church together sometimes, and I did go to seminary all through my high school years, but half the time I was, like, sleeping through the lesson. Like, I. I just wasn't ever super, you know, on top of learning about the church because it just has never really resonated with me. My sister and I did have primary callings, which was so. So fun. But I think that has. This would have been right after graduation. So we were pretty young, but did

John Dehlin [02:06:35] you try to get a testimony in high school? Did you even care enough to try?

Sierra Stokes [02:06:40] You know, I want to say no, but I feel like there were fleeting times when I was like, I should. I should try. Like, there were times where I would try to read the Scriptures, but I don't think I've ever made it past Genesis chapter one or, like, read the

John Dehlin [02:06:57] Book of Mormon in. In high school.

Sierra Stokes [02:06:58] No. And so I would go through phases also of trying to pray every night. And I do feel like sometimes I don't know if I would say it was me feeling the spirit or if it was just, you know, now that we're both out of the church, I'd like to say that I'm more of just like, a spiritual person. And maybe it was just, like, positive energy I was feeling. I'm a little bit more into that than, like, it being the actual spirit hand on my shoulder, like, comforting me kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I did go through those phases. And I remember one time I did ask my seminary teacher. I don't know if you guys know the book. Me before you.

John Dehlin [02:07:36] When she.

Sierra Stokes [02:07:38] It's a. It's a romance. They turned it into a chick flick. And he. It's about a quadra. What's the word?

Thomas Stokes [02:07:44] Quadriplegic.

Sierra Stokes [02:07:45] Quadriplegic, who falls in love with his caretaker, obviously. And before he met her, he.

John Dehlin [02:07:54] I remember that movie.

Sierra Stokes [02:07:55] Yeah. Before he met her, he was, like, set on Dewey. What would you call that? Like, assisted death by Suicide or euthanasia.

John Dehlin [02:08:03] Euthanasia, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:08:05] Because he just felt like he had nothing left to live for. And then he met her, and he kind of went back and forth. But ultimately, at the end of the book.

Thomas Stokes [02:08:10] Whoa, whoa, whoa. Spoilers.

Sierra Stokes [02:08:12] Should I not spoil it? I feel like I have to.

John Dehlin [02:08:15] Is it important for the story?

Sierra Stokes [02:08:16] I mean, it's like, the entire ending.

John Dehlin [02:08:18] Okay, so if you don't want to know the ending of me before you skip about 45 seconds. 45 seconds.

Sierra Stokes [02:08:27] Essentially, it has to. To do with suicide. And, you know, as a teenage girl, this just, like. Yes, yes. As a teenage girl, this book was just, like, so romantic and so heartbreaking. And so I remember asking my seminary teacher about suicide. What happens for people if they do happen to, you know, commit it and. And do they go to hell? I feel like that's mostly just the Catholic belief. Or do they. You know, where do they stand? And I can't even remember the answer he gave me. I know he told me that they don't go to hell, but you guys would know better than me, probably, what Mormons believe. As far as.

Thomas Stokes [02:09:00] It's changed.

John Dehlin [02:09:00] It's changed.

Thomas Stokes [02:09:01] They used to say that it's changed.

Sierra Stokes [02:09:03] I'm so shocked. Anyways, and so I feel like that was kind of the. The cap for me was asking, like, a few maybe kind of deep questions about afterlife and then trying to be habitual in prayer and scripture study, but I'm telling you, it never lasted longer than, like, a month. And so it was just very sporadic, and I was never super dedicated to it.

John Dehlin [02:09:27] Any. Any worthiness, you know, sort of discussions with your bishop or any.

Sierra Stokes [02:09:32] Oh, this is another subject that I'm very heated about.

John Dehlin [02:09:36] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:09:36] So I never actually went into the bishop for any, like, confessionals, because even

John Dehlin [02:09:42] as a teenager, did you know you were supposed to.

Sierra Stokes [02:09:44] Oh, yeah, because like I said, my best friend was super Mormon, and if she made out with her boyfriend and he, like, put his hand in her back pocket, she would go in, win. And if she's watching this, I want her to know that I love her to death too. But. And for me, like, she would tell me that, like, oh, I just feel like I need to go into my bishop. And then I was over there doing a lot worse without being gratuitous. Yeah.

Guest [02:10:06] And.

Sierra Stokes [02:10:07] And I was like, no, I'm not gonna go tell my bishop about this. Especially because in a small town, I'm like, business. Like, half the time, your bishop is also your science teacher, so then you have to, like, see him every day. And it's like, I don't know.

Guest [02:10:17] And.

Sierra Stokes [02:10:18] And so I definitely had a lot of instances where I. I should have gone in by, you know, church standards. I would have been in there probably every week, though. And I just, like, from the very beginning, that definitely has never resonated with me to go in. You know, I'm very big on therapy and counseling, and bishops are not therapists, they're not counselors. And again, I had my parents, if I wanted to talk about something, and they were going to offer me a lot better advice and make me feel more comfortable than going into this random

Thomas Stokes [02:10:52] dude that I, you know, again, I'm jealous.

Sierra Stokes [02:10:55] Yeah. And so to answer your question, I had a lot of worthiness, quote, unquote issues, but to me, they weren't issues. It was just like, it is what it is, normal teenager behavior.

John Dehlin [02:11:07] So yet again, like, the. The orthodox Mormon would say, that's awful. If you commit those.

Sierra Stokes [02:11:13] I was off the rail.

John Dehlin [02:11:15] And he, you don't confess to your bishop. Yeah, you're horrible. What you had was just common sense to be like, it's none of his business.

Sierra Stokes [02:11:23] Yeah. Like, that was not going to make me feel comfortable.

John Dehlin [02:11:26] And so you didn't get subjected to this massive shame spiral that like 500 of the people I've interviewed have all had to deal with.

Sierra Stokes [02:11:34] Yeah, yeah, I remember.

John Dehlin [02:11:35] You were the smart, healthy one doing the things that were viewed by Mormons as being the worst possible, possible things.

Thomas Stokes [02:11:42] Can I also just say that during this time, I knew that cece wasn't kind of following the path, and so I. Much to my, you know, shame. I have, I had thoughts like that about cece. I was like, oh, she's off the path. And I. I heard about her living with her boyfriend and I was like, oh, Cece, where. What have you. What have you done?

Guest [02:12:05] Yes.

Sierra Stokes [02:12:06] Yeah, he would have heard about a lot of stuff. Because I know that my behavior was probably especially concerning to my oldest sister, who, again, is still in the church, always will be, probably, and was through her high school years. And so, yeah, I was just like the wild child, the baby sister that was like, just concerning everybody. And so he would have heard about a lot of that to be. To be sure. Gosh. I had something else I was going to add and I forgot about the

John Dehlin [02:12:33] bishop and interviews with the bishop.

Sierra Stokes [02:12:35] Oh, yeah, I was going to say I did have. I think the one interview I had with the bishop was for baptisms for the dead to go with the young women. And I just. I lied through my teeth, man. Like, Like Even then, I was like, I feel like this would be a cool experience, and I want to go with all the girls. But even at that time, I think I was probably, like, 14, and I had some things that, you know, wouldn't have flown to get into the temple, but I was like, no, I'm good. I'm good.

Guest [02:13:04] Let's go.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:05] You know, nothing super egregious, but, you know, some of the temple questions they ask are pretty. You know, by normal standards, it's just like, fluffy behavior. But for them, it's like, oh, you can't enter the house of the Lord

John Dehlin [02:13:17] now and be shamed in front of all your peers and your parents.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:20] Yeah. And so I think that was the

Thomas Stokes [02:13:22] only, like, simple things, like the word of wisdom. They asked that. Yeah, I know you drink coffee and stuff.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:26] Yeah. And so that was the only meeting I ever had with him was to go to baptisms for the dead, which I did. And it was a cool experience, I feel like, but I guess I shouldn't have been there.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:39] Wasn't weird. It wasn't weird for you.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:40] No, no.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:41] That's good.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:42] So, yeah, that's. That's about where I stood all through my childhood in high school years.

John Dehlin [02:13:47] Dodged the shame bullet, basically.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:49] I did.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:49] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:50] I just refused to feel shame for something that I knew was very natural. I was like, you know, so to

John Dehlin [02:13:56] a Mormon, that's my blowing.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:59] I know it. Thomas is pretty mind blown.

Thomas Stokes [02:14:01] I'm so proud of you. I can't. Yeah, now I'm proud of you.

John Dehlin [02:14:04] I bet you're an arrogant jerk about it.

Thomas Stokes [02:14:06] Jeez. No, I did. I had condescending thoughts about my wife. I mean, she wasn't.

Sierra Stokes [02:14:11] Not when I was your wife. But before we've talked about this. Like, I don't think he would have given me the time of day if he didn't already know me through my siblings. Because when he was at byu, he was dating so many girls, trying to find the right wife by, you know, by church standards. And I was just like, not that mold at all. Cut from a completely different cloth, but because he knew me, we started as friends, and then by that time, we'll get into it, he started to hit his faith crisis, and so he was like, okay, I can give her a shot. Which I'm really proud. Really proud. He got to that point when we started dating. So.

Thomas Stokes [02:14:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:48] Okay. Okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:14:49] So now we are in the same place, same time.

Sierra Stokes [02:14:52] Yeah. Yep. We. I moved back to Utah from Colorado,

John Dehlin [02:14:57] and because you met. You met him again, and you're like, hey, Maybe I want to date him or.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:02] Yeah. Well, I was already planning on going back to Utah because at that point, I was interested in aesthetics, and Utah is a really great.

John Dehlin [02:15:08] What is that?

Sierra Stokes [02:15:09] It's skin care.

John Dehlin [02:15:10] Okay.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:11] So I'm a facialist. And so I knew that Utah was a really great industry for it or a good place to be in the industry.

John Dehlin [02:15:18] Skin creams everywhere.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:20] Yeah. Yep. Everybody wants to look like they're 30 forever. And so I already had it in my mind that I was going to move back, and we just drove. We happened to drive back together to get him to a date, actually.

Thomas Stokes [02:15:32] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:34] Were you jealous?

Thomas Stokes [02:15:35] I. I know she was.

Guest [02:15:37] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:38] I would say no, but I think I was, because, like I said, I've thought he was cute since I was 12. And so I. I was like, I'm literally driving you back to go on a date with another girl.

Thomas Stokes [02:15:46] But, yeah, the date was okay. The drive was more fun.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:50] It obviously didn't work out.

Thomas Stokes [02:15:51] The drive with you was way better

Sierra Stokes [02:15:52] than the day anyways. Yeah. So we both ended up back in Utah, and I started school June of 2018, while he would have been.

John Dehlin [02:15:58] This is three years ago.

Sierra Stokes [02:16:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:03] Now we're married.

Guest [02:16:04] Sorry.

John Dehlin [02:16:05] I just realized how. This is only three years ago.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:07] Yeah, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:16:07] Oh, yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:08] We're fresh. Y.

John Dehlin [02:16:11] Sorry. Keep going.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:12] No, no, we're good.

Guest [02:16:13] So.

Sierra Stokes [02:16:13] So, yeah, I started aesthetic school June of 2018. All through that summer. Or not all through that summer. About mid July is when we started to act more like boyfriend and girlfriend and decided we would like to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:28] July 14th.

Sierra Stokes [02:16:29] Yes. He's really. Yeah. And that was a really good summer. Thomas Copy calls it the summer of greatness. He found his hobbies that, to this day, have helped him with his anxiety and his depression surrounding the church. He got into mountain biking, canyoneering. He's a nature guy. And so we just had a really, really good summer.

John Dehlin [02:16:49] And he got together with you, and

Thomas Stokes [02:16:51] it was literally the summer of grace.

Sierra Stokes [02:16:54] It was.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:54] And I broke my collarbone that summer. Also crazy mountain biking. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:16:59] Going over your handlebars.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:01] The bike came out from under me like this, and then I landed on my shoulder. Bam. Just snapped it.

Sierra Stokes [02:17:07] That was actually the same weekend.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:08] That was the day after we kissed. The only reason she stuck with me because she felt bad I was a cripple, and she was like, I have to take care of this guy.

Sierra Stokes [02:17:18] It was a little interesting to start a relationship that way. Yeah, it was fun.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:22] So that that summer kicked things off with my faith crisis, everything backtracking very Slightly. Did you have something you wanted to say or.

John Dehlin [02:17:29] I want to talk about Cordyce before we talk about the faith crisis.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:32] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:33] Go ahead and go to where you want to go.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:34] Yeah. So this is before we started dating, because this is big. But I did start to have doubt. More doubts, because I took the foundations of the restoration class fall.

John Dehlin [02:17:44] Who was that? Who taught that?

Thomas Stokes [02:17:45] Oh, I don't remember his name.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] Was it Flumen? It wasn't Spencer?

Thomas Stokes [02:17:47] No, he was a younger guy, bow tie.

John Dehlin [02:17:49] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:49] Looked like. What is it? James Corden? Is that the guy? Okay, it looks like him. Yeah. I forgot his name. But some fall of 2017 took that class. That is when I learned even more about church history. Caused more doubts to surface. I started freaking out a little bit, but still kept it on my shelf

Sierra Stokes [02:18:12] and on the timeline. That was. You wrapped up that class the fall before we started dating, right?

Thomas Stokes [02:18:18] Yeah, that. That wintered in. In that. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:18:22] So all through that first summer, he was already kind of like, some of this isn't sitting right. And then he started dating me, and he was like, oh, you seem like a good person, but you don't follow the rules at all. So where's the truth? And what is the truth?

Thomas Stokes [02:18:34] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:18:36] Interesting.

John Dehlin [02:18:36] Okay. So, I mean, this was. This next segment was kind of your segment, and I guess I don't want to. I like to follow the timeline. So in addition to anything else. Thomas, that. In addition to what you just said, I don't want to give short shrift CC to your story, but now it looks like your timeline's merging, emerging. So, Thomas, is there anything else you want to tell about coming home from your mission and other than just that class? Yeah, that is important to the story. To Then once we start telling the story, United. Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:09] I got back from my mission, and I knew I had to choose a major.

John Dehlin [02:19:12] Did you feel like it was a successful mission overall?

Thomas Stokes [02:19:15] Yes. I felt great about it.

John Dehlin [02:19:16] You felt great about it?

Thomas Stokes [02:19:17] Despite my team leader. Were you, like, one thing my mission president stressed was how unimportant important callings are.

John Dehlin [02:19:24] And you don't like to talk about it.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:25] I mean, I trained twice, and I was a district leader for six weeks.

John Dehlin [02:19:30] Oh, okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:30] Not a ton.

John Dehlin [02:19:31] Okay. So, like, living like, you know, the elders quorum president, sort of like high Mormon achievement. You didn't get the zone leader ap.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:39] I did not. I couldn't care less about that.

John Dehlin [02:19:41] You didn't care?

Thomas Stokes [02:19:42] I did not care.

John Dehlin [02:19:43] You were disappointed you didn't. Nope.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:44] Neither did my mission president. Honestly, he was like. Like he would put People in leadership positions, not because they're amazing, but just as an experience to grow. And like, like, he would, honestly, he would say stuff like that all the time. He was like, it does not matter where I put you. It doesn't say anything about how good of a missionary you are if you become AP or if you never train once in your mission, which again, I think is great. Okay. It makes us not arrogant.

Sierra Stokes [02:20:09] You kept your head on straight pretty well.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:11] But yeah, successful mission. I got back and I didn't know. I. I didn't get into the school of music and I didn't want to audition again because I felt like it was my job to choose a career that would provide for my family. I had to follow the mold. I had to get my four year degree, find a job, get married, have a kid, be stable. And so I chose the Spanish translation major, which it got me the job that, you know, a job after college. And I'm grateful for that, but I feel like I gave up on my music dreams for good.

John Dehlin [02:20:47] Good.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:47] Not anymore, obviously, but I gave up on my dreams for a while there and just chose a major that, you know, was okay for me and provide for family and that would provide for family, which, you know, because you have

John Dehlin [02:21:00] to hurry and get married and have lots of kids.

Sierra Stokes [02:21:02] Yeah, he was looking, he was like, I need to start.

Thomas Stokes [02:21:05] So, yeah, dating and BYU was rough. Didn't have a lot of success. I had a couple girlfriends, but. But none lasted too long. So, yeah, I'm good. That's all I need to say. Before we actually started dating and my

John Dehlin [02:21:20] friends worked in elevator maintenance. Byu.

Thomas Stokes [02:21:23] Yeah. Best job ever. I was. I did elevator maintenance at byu. Yep, very fun. Got to see a lot of cool parts of campus. Underground tunnels. I was in the elevator shaft. Super dangerous and sketchy. We did things that we were not supposed to do. But yeah, it was just a fun job.

John Dehlin [02:21:42] And just going back to this foundations of the Restoration class, were there any specific teachings there that caused you to doubt that you want to talk about it?

Thomas Stokes [02:21:52] That's when I learned more about Seer Stone and the translation process.

John Dehlin [02:21:58] Tell our listeners what that basically is.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:22:01] What you're taught and then what you learned.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:02] Yeah. So on the mission you are taught. Taught or not on the mission, but growing up, you're taught that Joseph Smith used the golden plates to translate the Book of Mormon. He would. You would see pictures of him in church studying character to character, you know, having a scribe write it down. The plates were visible. He had the Urim and Thummim which was a pair of spectacles that was, that were with the plates. And he used that to translate. And that's what we were taught the whole time on the mission. It got brought up up for the first time that he actually used the sear stone to translate the Book of Mormon, which was a stone he found digging a well, I think. And so he believed that stone, or claimed that that stone had magical powers, would use that stone to go treasure hunting, to find treasure for people. They would pay him and he would say, let's go find some treasure with my seer stone. They wouldn't find anything. And he got in trouble for that. He was, I think it was in 1826 he was charged with disorderly conduct. And so that whole treasure digging eventually evolved into him using that same seer stone, quote unquote, to translate the golden plates. And that I didn't think a lot about, about it on my mission because it didn't go into that much detail. Detail. But in that Foundations of the Restoration class, we went into detail. I learned a lot about it. I learned about the magic worldview of Joseph Smith's family and the surrounding community at the time. I learned about. No. Yeah. To me that was just kind of troubling because my professor would just keep making apologetic answers and excuses to why it was totally normal for Joseph Smith to do that and it was fine. Didn't sit well with me. They glossed over polygamy. We spent like a day on polygamy. And he was like, oh, and it's not important. We don't know a lot. And that's all you need to know. And I'm like, how this is Foundations of the Restoration and you're making apologetic excuses for, for all these troublesome things that, that went on in church history. So that really bothered me and kind of kicked off my faith crisis. But I was doing my best to hold it back.

John Dehlin [02:24:23] Back. Okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:24:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:25] Yeah. And I've always wondered about that because in addition to the church releasing the Gospel topics essays, they started incorporating some of these historical issues into their curriculum for seminary and institute and for BYU classes. So it's always made me wonder. I, I, I would have always guessed and it's been confirmed that what this does is for many, it may inoculate some where they hear just enough to, to feel like there's nothing to worry about, but it may spread the disease for others. Kind of like a truly dangerous, like we talk about vaccine injury. I don't want to like bring in a totally different subject here, but like, if the church was thinking about the gospel topics essays as like a vaccine to inoculate people against the disease of doubt, the gospel topics essays actually did cause real vaccine injury for many in terms of. Of spreading the doubt.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:25] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:25:25] And. And I. And that would have also happened with the CES courses and religious curriculum.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:31] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:25:31] And that's. That's how it was for you.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:33] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:33] It just caused your worse.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:35] And there was. There was. I remember there was like, a really radical girl who had, like. I don't know how she had dyed hair at byu. Because you can't have dyed hair, right? Oh, no, I don't.

John Dehlin [02:25:44] I've been there a while.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:46] Anyway, she always was, like, challenging the professor, and. And like, you could tell. I think she was just like a closeted XML or something. But she would ask questions and challenge him, and it made me, like, think. I'm like, she's got a point.

Sierra Stokes [02:25:59] She should be asking questions.

Thomas Stokes [02:26:00] She definitely got a point. Yeah. So I took that class. It ended. I shut it all away again. I didn't want to open it back up.

John Dehlin [02:26:08] Turned it off.

Thomas Stokes [02:26:09] Turned it off.

John Dehlin [02:26:09] Okay. All right. So then you guys met. You had the. What is it, the summer of glory

Thomas Stokes [02:26:14] or summer of greatness?

John Dehlin [02:26:17] You're dating. Okay, I was gonna ask about that. And maybe if you want to save this till later, I'm dying to know. And again, I'm gonna put on my orthodox Mormon cap and ask this question. So you've stayed pure and white and faithful. Chaste, Thomas. You've stayed chaste, and you're stooping to date a girl who has been sexually active and who has committed the sins next to murder, just the worst thing. And has been red as scarlet as the Old Testament. We were taught you're not made by scarlet. Scarlet. She was red as scarlet.

Guest [02:26:55] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:56] You're stooping today. And I hate all this rhetoric. It's gross. Especially as we tried to highlight you were actually the healthy one.

Thomas Stokes [02:27:03] I was horrified about it.

John Dehlin [02:27:05] But yeah, you're dating the harlot who's red as crimson instead of white as snow. And you have to. Now, you had already tasted of the fruit, which is most precious and desirable. And you guys are dating now, and you're like, man, I kind of missed some of that stuff. It was actually fun.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:21] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:27:21] So I'm not asking for, like, I'm not asking for lure details, but I am curious what that. We'll go there, what that dynamic is like when you want to talk about it.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:30] Yeah, Well, I feel like it's a Good time to jump into it. Because it was pretty early into our relationship that I was like, okay, how are we going to navigate this? This? Because however long we're gonna date, I don't really feel like I should have to suppress feelings that I've always found natural and that I have, you know, fed regularly for the last couple of years, you know, And I was like,

Thomas Stokes [02:27:56] she just doesn't get it.

John Dehlin [02:27:57] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:57] And I think that that obviously scared Thomas, and we had to have those conversations, like, okay, how are we going? Like, are you. You going to. I don't know, like, how are we going to meet in the middle? Basically, because I wasn't wanting to give up my lifestyle. He wasn't wanting to give up his lifestyle, and that was a definite roadblock. And so I feel like we just kind of coasted through that.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:19] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:20] Avoided that elephant in the room through the first summer that we were dating, because we were just having a lot of fun getting to know each other as boys.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:28] No, I mean, we'd make it out.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:30] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:30] But nothing crazy.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:32] Yeah. And then.

Guest [02:28:33] But the.

John Dehlin [02:28:33] But the stakes were higher for you, Thomas, because in theory, if you're. If you don't lie at byu, then you're under the honor code and you could get kicked out.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:41] Yes, I was very aware of that.

John Dehlin [02:28:43] You're in, like, you're in beauty school or whatever. And. And say it again.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:47] Aesthetics.

John Dehlin [02:28:47] Aesthetics. You're in aesthetics school. The. The stakes aren't as high for you.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:51] Oh, yeah, no, there's no honor code. They don't care what you're doing outside of school.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:56] I was. I just kept going back to that Sunday school lesson about the truck driver. I can drive this close to the edge. And the other truck driver was like, well, I can drive this close to the edge. And then the third one was like, I drive as far away from the edge as possible because I don't even go there. And I was like, I'm the first guy. I was like, what am I doing?

Sierra Stokes [02:29:15] I'm driving this.

Thomas Stokes [02:29:16] I was so scared. My parents were. I lived with my parents, and so they were like, thomas, be careful, be careful, be careful. Every day, like, every week, I'd get a be careful, be careful, careful.

Sierra Stokes [02:29:26] Yeah, I don't. His parents have definitely never made me feel judged, and I know that I fit right into their family and I have amazing in laws. But when we were dating, I. I know that they were so worried about me being promiscuous and, you know, dragging Thomas down the road with me.

John Dehlin [02:29:46] The pure son.

Sierra Stokes [02:29:46] Yeah, they were Worried about that. I remember one time I was just like. I think he was sitting on the couch and. And we. We had just been like, play wrestling or something. Like, not even approaching anything.

Thomas Stokes [02:29:58] I just had my hand like this.

Guest [02:30:00] No.

Sierra Stokes [02:30:00] What?

Thomas Stokes [02:30:00] Wait.

Sierra Stokes [02:30:01] Okay. I guess we have two stories. I just want to hear them. And I think I was just, like, straddling him, and we were just, like, playing or whatever. And his mom did walk in on us to tell us that dinner was ready. And then later, he told me that she'd pulled him aside after I'd left. And she was like, are you guys. You know, I kind of walked in on an awkward position where you guys.

John Dehlin [02:30:19] Clothes on. But you were just.

Thomas Stokes [02:30:20] Oh, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:30:21] We were literally just. Just like. We weren't. We hadn't even been kissing or anything. We were really just like, just playing around like children would. And I ended up on top, and she happened to see that, and she was like, oh, are you guys safe? It was bad timing. But are you being safe? Yeah. And I'm like, I can teach him how to be safe. Like, you know. Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:30:42] They don't mean, are you using protection? It means, are you staying? Are you keeping the spirit?

Sierra Stokes [02:30:47] Different things for us. And I was like, I can. You know. Yes, we're being safe.

Thomas Stokes [02:30:51] But what was the other story I had? We were sitting on the couch, and if you can see on the video, my arm was like. Yeah, like, right here. Like, kind of on her armpit.

John Dehlin [02:31:00] A little too close. A little too close.

Thomas Stokes [02:31:01] And my dad. After she left, my dad was like, thomas, I noticed your hand was really close to her breast. He's like, you need to be careful. And I was like. And then I had. I hadn't processed all my family trauma. And so my relationship with all my family members. Members was like, there was a wall there. And so how I would cope with it, I would just say, okay, and then just not okay. I'm sorry.

Sierra Stokes [02:31:21] That was another obstacle that we had to overcome.

Thomas Stokes [02:31:24] Ever.

Sierra Stokes [02:31:25] Yeah. Because I've never been that way. I've been rebellious from the start. And so that was something that I would just get so triggered by him, like, kowtowing, almost as, like, why can't you just, like, you know, you don't want to just, like, constantly be causing waves if you don't need to. And you don't need to be, like, creating contention if there's no need. But I'm like, say what's on your mind, or say, what you feeling, or, like, stand up for yourself a little bit.

Thomas Stokes [02:31:47] No way.

Sierra Stokes [02:31:48] So, yeah, we had to overcome that too. And he's a lot better now, but he's always just been so chill in his personality that while he didn't know how to express to his family that he was leaving the church, it turned into, like, really bad people pleasing. I was like, dude, you're getting walked on.

John Dehlin [02:32:04] So because of whatever stuff, traumatic stuff happened while you were on your mission that left a family dynamic where. Where if your parents gave you guidance, you just said, yes, I just said, whatever you say. Yeah, there's very much a wall shut down inside. And. And that was. That was sort of PTSD symptoms in

Thomas Stokes [02:32:24] your mind, I guess. So, like, when I started therapy, it all made sense, and I was like, oh, that's why I felt that way.

John Dehlin [02:32:30] What do you. What now, looking back, what were you doing?

Thomas Stokes [02:32:32] I was psychologically, I was protecting myself and the view that I had of my family and my life, life, my perfect life before my mission. I was trying to preserve that. I was trying to still be that good boy. I was trying to tell myself that that's still how my life and my family life was.

John Dehlin [02:32:48] Even though you knew something dark had happened?

Thomas Stokes [02:32:50] Yeah, even though I knew that there were. There were issues that my family went through that I totally missed. Totally missed.

Sierra Stokes [02:32:57] I feel like your. Your use of the term good boy. I was actually going to say something that adds to that and it makes sense. I feel like you would almost. Almost revert back to being a young adult or a child who did need your parents to tell you, like, you know, like, kind of, like, kind of keep you on track.

Thomas Stokes [02:33:16] Oh, okay. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:33:17] With your people pleasing. I mean, it was like he would literally, like you said, you're trying to preserve that image of your perfect childhood and family life that you had. And it really was. And so I'd have to tell him. I'm like, you're 20. How old are you? Like, you're 23 years old. You don't have to just, like, accept what your parents are saying to you anymore, which, you know, that can start at any age where you start to kind of question that and a little bit of defiance is healthy. But I'd have to like, constantly remind him, like, you're in college, You're. You're an adult. Like, you're figuring yourself out. And their guidance only needs to go so far in their advice. Like, you can set boundaries there. So it's interesting that you. That you said that. I think I feel like you really would just turn, like, try to be a good boy again, like 11, 12 years old.

Thomas Stokes [02:34:04] You know, I was trying.

John Dehlin [02:34:05] Yeah, yeah, we had a comment, and this isn't to. To bag on your dad, but the comment from Sam was, that's creepy that the dad say that. Said that referring to what he said when your arm was over shoulder. And I was gonna say that's not creepy, that's Mormon.

Thomas Stokes [02:34:20] No. Yeah, I don't, I didn't find it creepy at the time.

John Dehlin [02:34:22] That's what Mormon's parents say to their kids.

Thomas Stokes [02:34:24] It was just. I mean, I, I need to recognize that it all comes out of concern.

John Dehlin [02:34:29] Yeah, of course.

Thomas Stokes [02:34:29] They're great parents and I love them still. And my relationship with them has only gotten better.

Sierra Stokes [02:34:34] And they've just been. Sorry, real quick, not to interrupt. It's just you're taught as a parent, I think, to overanalyze your children's actions and that comes with noticing where their hands might be. And like, not that you're letting your eyes drift in a negative or again, creepy way like the comment said. But yeah, when you're outside of the bubble, it's like, okay, why, why do parents notice that? Like, is that not kind of odd?

Thomas Stokes [02:35:00] It's cuz they were concerned about me. They didn't want me to break the law of chastity.

Sierra Stokes [02:35:03] And so it's like you have to watch every.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:06] Yeah. They wanted to keep me safe, which I can't blame them for that. I. I was raised

John Dehlin [02:35:14] Mormon. Parents are supposed to.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:15] Absolutely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:16] Keep your kids from having sex.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:17] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:35:18] Keep them pure for the temple.

Sierra Stokes [02:35:19] Yeah. Look out for anything that would maybe lead to inappropriate actions.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:23] Yeah, most definitely.

Sierra Stokes [02:35:24] Even if it's just a hand on the shoulder. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:28] Okay, so you're. Okay. So at first that was not a big deal to navigate, you're saying?

Thomas Stokes [02:35:34] No, it was hard, but we, we just kind of skirted around and I stood my ground and didn't let her.

Sierra Stokes [02:35:42] Yeah. I feel like I didn't, I didn't pressure him as much at first. First, because I, I don't think you ever. I did try to see it. I feel like I got kind of pushy. I did try to see it from his point of view. I'm like, okay, I have known really Mormon people and I know exactly how he's been raised and this is totally foreign to him. And I know that he thinks that this would be like one of the worst things he could do. This could just end his world if we were to take anything a step further. And so I feel like at first I did try to be really patient and I was like, like sometimes I Would get frustrated if he would, like, cut us off from making out or something.

Thomas Stokes [02:36:20] I had a will, but I wasn't.

Sierra Stokes [02:36:22] Yeah, he was. He was so strong. And at first I was like, okay, you know what? That's fine, because I'm stubborn. So I was like, if he's going to be stubborn, you know, I'll. I'll back off a little bit and I'll be a little bit more patient. But then eventually my stubbornness came through. Through, and I'd been wearing on him, and so it did get a little bit harder. Gosh, when would you say?

Thomas Stokes [02:36:48] Well, after my faith crisis. Honestly, after the initial realization.

Sierra Stokes [02:36:53] Yeah, because he realized that he didn't believe a lot of what he'd been taught, but he was still clinging to this idea that if he did, he just had so much moral conflict. Like, he was constantly just like, if I do this, am I a bad person? Like, what happens to me if I do this? And I was like, like, you have to realize that you're one of the kindest people I know. Right? Like, it doesn't matter what we do. I mean, yeah, I married you. And so, like, I just constantly had to reaffirm. I'm like, it doesn't matter if you do this one thing just because, you know, even if it was drinking coffee and, like, coffee, you're still an amazing person and you, like, it doesn't matter what you ingest. That doesn't change your moral compass. And that was very interesting.

Thomas Stokes [02:37:32] She was pressuring me to take a sip of coffee and. And this was after my faith crisis, after the realization.

John Dehlin [02:37:36] Let's not jump ahead.

Thomas Stokes [02:37:37] Sorry. Okay, okay.

Sierra Stokes [02:37:38] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:37:38] So, no, I want to hear that story. But, yeah, I just want to note one thing. So when I think about your typical story, Cece, for people I've interviewed in the past and people I've talked to, it's like, had your prodigal years as a teen or as a young adult. But for those who do go through the repentance process and the shame cycle with the bishop, then they're like, okay, I can't be dirty anymore. I can't be bad anymore. I need to become respectable.

Sierra Stokes [02:38:07] Like, I'm fresh now. I'm going to stay that way.

John Dehlin [02:38:09] I'm going to become over righteous and like. And if they, like, I'm thinking of Halle ever. She goes to byu and she's like, now I'm going to be super righteous.

Thomas Stokes [02:38:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:17] And now I'm going to be pure and I'm going to be that good girl that's not you. What's unique about you is you go to Provo, you go to Utah, but

Sierra Stokes [02:38:26] you're, like, right in the thick of it.

John Dehlin [02:38:27] You're right in the thick of it, but you're not taking any of it super serious seriously. And you still have a sense of confidence about who you are, and it's. And you're trying to be respectful of Thomas, but you're not feeling all this guilt and shame and trying to be perfect and trying to be the model Mormon girl. You're more. You're more saying, hey, I've got needs too. Okay, you be patient. I'll be patient. We'll compromise. But you're not behind the eight ball of trying to be little Miss Molly Mormon.

Sierra Stokes [02:39:00] Yeah, no, I definitely.

John Dehlin [02:39:01] That's a different dynamic.

Sierra Stokes [02:39:02] Yeah, I didn't budge. I mean, we. We started to go to YSA together, and we did all through our dating life and marriage.

Thomas Stokes [02:39:10] Much of marriage.

Sierra Stokes [02:39:11] Yeah. But again, even then, there were little things. Like, we'd be late almost every Sunday because I wouldn't have something that was appropriate enough to wear. I mean, it was. And I would wear it, but I'd be like, okay, hey, my skirt isn't touching my knees. Like, is this okay? And that would make us late because I would just be. You know, I'm stubborn in my ways. And like we've discussed, I. I didn't change myself to become. To fit the mold better, but there were little things where I was.

Thomas Stokes [02:39:44] You were worried about being judged.

Sierra Stokes [02:39:46] Yeah. And very rarely that came through because we've made it pretty clear that I don't. Don't care that much what other people think about me. But, yeah, I. I did try to be understanding and going to church with him and trying to immerse myself a little bit in his lifestyle just to see if I did have a change of heart, which ultimately, here we are. I didn't and Thomas did. But, yeah, it is an interesting dynamic that I didn't just immediately decide to change because I felt like I needed to in order to be a better girlfriend for you.

Thomas Stokes [02:40:25] I'm glad you didn't change.

Sierra Stokes [02:40:28] I knew that you would. I don't want to say I knew that you would come to terms, but in my head, I was like, you know what? I'm fun the way I am. You know, like, we can have fun this way. So I'm not going to, like, just completely change my entire personality.

Thomas Stokes [02:40:43] Yeah. Nor should you have.

Wrapping Up Part One

John Dehlin [02:40:46] Okay, so we're about 2 hours and 40 minutes in, and what I'd like to do we talked about having a part one and a part two?

Thomas Stokes [02:40:52] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:40:53] So what we're gonna do, let's. Let's think for a second about how you want to wrap up part one. What I wanted part one to be about is everything kind of leading up to where the fifth faith crisis starts to become really serious.

Thomas Stokes [02:41:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:41:06] So I think we've. We've kind of done. Done that first part at least. What else do you want to do to close out this part of the story? Then what we'll do is we'll. We'll end, we'll take a quick break, and then we'll just start up part two. And for those who are checking, who are watching us live, we'll start up the live stream again and, you know, 10 or 15 minutes and we'll just keep going.

Sierra Stokes [02:41:26] Sounds good.

John Dehlin [02:41:26] But what else do you want to share about your stories prior to the faith crisis and then. And then the marriage and coping after that?

Thomas Stokes [02:41:38] I would say that.

John Dehlin [02:41:39] Is there a song you want to share to close or do we ought to save that for the beginning also?

Thomas Stokes [02:41:43] Let's, let's do the song to open part two, because it's all about the initial faith crisis. So let's. I just wanted to say that we had kind of reached an equilibrium. My beliefs were shaky, but I wanted to stay in. Her beliefs were very strong. Strong, but she liked me enough to, you know, be okay with it. We were, we were being good. We were keeping the law of chastity. We loved each other. And yeah, that's, that's just where we were.

John Dehlin [02:42:17] So my question is, like, if I'm also just channeling orthodox Mormon brain, which you and I both had. Right?

Thomas Stokes [02:42:24] Yes, I. I get you.

John Dehlin [02:42:25] It's. You want to marry the girl that's the returned missionary faithful, who is maybe was Relief Society president, who was virtuous, who, you know, came from a model Mormon family, maybe even has general authorities in her line, like whatever it is just the BYU queen sort of thing. What was it that made you want to again, like, drive your truck close to the edge and be willing to date and consider for marriage? And again, I hate the way I'm talking about this, Cece, and you're being so good natured by smiling because, you know, some. There are lots of orthodox Mormon parents. Like, if I'm thinking about you meeting my son or daughter, I'm like, cece, she's got the right upbringing that I want my kids making a lifelong commitment to in terms of perspective and health and confidence and those sorts of things. But if I'm channeling my orthodox Mormon brain, it's like, this is risky. This is you driving. This is, again, you driving your truck too close to the edge. So as we close, I guess I'll ask you both. Thomas, what made you willing to date CeCe and consider her for marriage, knowing that she had such a spotty, checkered, dark past from an orthodox Mormon perspective? And, cece, I'll flip that. What made you open to marrying a nerd and a geek? A square and a boring square?

Thomas Stokes [02:43:54] I didn't have a beard at that time either, so I looked like a noob.

John Dehlin [02:43:57] Like, why would you even want to. Why would you want that mess in your life? Right. Why would you marry some cool, healthy guy who wasn't wrapped around the axle?

Thomas Stokes [02:44:07] Yeah. My mission president always said, don't marry a project. And so I was like, I'm dating a project. But I was willing to continue because I had never.

John Dehlin [02:44:19] You did see her as a project?

Thomas Stokes [02:44:21] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:44:22] I mean, isn't that so cringy?

Thomas Stokes [02:44:23] It's messed up. I mean, I wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna convert her back. Like, I knew that.

Sierra Stokes [02:44:28] But you did mention the conversation you had with your parents where you.

Thomas Stokes [02:44:33] I said she was willing.

Sierra Stokes [02:44:34] Tried to comfort them that I was willing to go to church more and

Thomas Stokes [02:44:37] that you were, like, working my parent. I comforted my parents by saying that cece was willing to give it a shot and that she. She. She wanted to. To go to church with me and. And learn all this stuff. They're like, all right, that's enough for now. But I continued, despite the fact that I was worried about my eternal salvation, because I had never loved anyone so deeply and had never gotten along with anyone so well and meshed with someone in every single aspect, like I have with Cece. And I knew her from a long, you know, since I was 16. And she's always been a good person, a fun person, and. And just like friends, you know, we were already really good friends.

Sierra Stokes [02:45:23] We.

Thomas Stokes [02:45:23] We had already had so many amazing experiences before dating. Like, we went canyoneering once, and we just had the best time ever.

Sierra Stokes [02:45:32] And.

Thomas Stokes [02:45:34] And I was not about to give that up because I had gone through breakups. I had gone through kind of prudish Mormon girls already. I had gone through people, you know, know that, you know, hurt me. And I was like, if that's what that dating scene is like, I want this dating scene, because I feel loved and I feel good. And that's, like, even despite the moral conflict, I was like, I feel better than I ever have. So that was powerful to me. I was like, that's got to be love. That can't be Satan deceiving me, because I feel nothing.

John Dehlin [02:46:07] It could be.

Thomas Stokes [02:46:07] It could be, right?

John Dehlin [02:46:08] Satan's a good counterfeiter.

Thomas Stokes [02:46:10] I thought I felt nothing but love. You know, like, even during her hardship with her breakup and my faith crisis, I. I felt nothing but love.

John Dehlin [02:46:18] So, I mean, before we jump to you, cece, I'll just say that I've already highlighted all the ways you've been remarkable so far in your story. Cece Thomas, I'm really happy for you that, like, you had the presence to say, I'm going for friendship. I'm going for emotional intimacy and connection. And frankly, I'm prioritizing my own health and happiness over these gospel teachings that I still believe in. At the time, I can't believe I

Thomas Stokes [02:46:45] was able to do that, but that

John Dehlin [02:46:46] maybe you were sensing you shouldn't follow slavishly.

Sierra Stokes [02:46:50] There was something stronger.

Thomas Stokes [02:46:52] Something stronger. I can't believe I was able to do that. But that's pretty cool.

John Dehlin [02:46:56] Love. Remarkable.

Thomas Stokes [02:46:56] That's what love does.

John Dehlin [02:46:57] Most people don't do that.

Thomas Stokes [02:46:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:46:59] So that's. I think that's one unit. This is a story I've never heard on more Mormon stories before, and I'm loving it, so I'm super excited to see what happens next. So, cece, why were you willing to marry or consider marrying a Mormon square? I think a prudish, tightly wound.

Sierra Stokes [02:47:16] He was. He's very tightly wound. So, like he said, we just had so much fun together. And I've mentioned that our friend chemistry first before even having a romantic partner chemistry, it was just as strong. And so. So, you know, in the same way that you wouldn't give up on a friend, even if it's hard for you to, like, continuously have to coax them. I was like, why would I give up on, you know, someone that I could potentially marry? Like, that's even more important, I think, is to not give up on your potential life partner. And so a small percentage of it was just that challenge of keeping that friendship and keeping him in my life because I like tabbing him around. And then another big part of it is that he mentioned this. He was extremely patient with me while I was going through the aftermath of my last breakup, because we. Gosh, we started dating, like, four months after my breakup, which is so soon. And I feel like for the kind of person I am, I would never have done that otherwise. He just happened to fall perfectly into my lap. And he was so kind, kind. And he helped me through probably the darkest time in my life. And so I was like, okay, now he's going through his own dark time. I think we can make this work because we've already established that, you know, we care a lot for each other. And like Thomas said, that counts for something. To just like, feel that, that caring and that kindness, even if you know that you have a really messy road ahead. And so I'd like to think that I just had a lot of foresight. Like I would just imagine our lives because I knew that he was not steady in his beliefs at all. At this point.

Thomas Stokes [02:49:02] Yeah, at this point.

Sierra Stokes [02:49:04] At this point I'm like, he's more out than he's in. So if I can be patient with him and if I can wait for him, I really do see us living a life that I imagine. And I wasn't trying to just like, pull him away. We forgot to mention this, but when he told me that he was happy having questions about his faith, I was like, you need to be sure. And so it definitely wasn't a matter of me being like, oh, I want to like, pull this boy away from everything he knows, just, you know, for the pleasure of doing it. It was more of like, I just had foresight. And I was like, I really do think he's going to come away on his own and I can wait for him to do that and I'm going to be so happy when I do like, high risk, high reward kind of thing.

Thomas Stokes [02:49:42] So, yeah, we'll talk about the, the plunge into the rabbit hole, part two. But I love you. That was so sweet.

Sierra Stokes [02:49:50] I love you too.

John Dehlin [02:49:52] That was sweet. Yeah. And in all fairness, we're hard on the church, sometimes hard on systems, try not to be hard on people. But, you know, even, even Richard Rohr, the Catholic, sort of progressive Catholic priest, has said that there's kind of first half of life and second half of the life and the first half of life, let's just shorthand, it's getting you to adulthood. Even Richard Rohr in the book Falling Upward, says that Mormons do first half of life better than almost anybody. And so, you know, you got to, you know, cc, I'm thinking about you. You've got this guy that's served a two year mission, speaks a foreign language, has spent a couple of years trying to serve and love and help other people. He spent his life trying to learn how to be a good dad and a good husband and to be generally honest and kind mind I mean, that's not so bad.

Sierra Stokes [02:50:42] Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. There's definitely so much that we disagree with in how Thomas was taught, but, you know, we'll say this until the day we die, that the Gospel does teach good things. As far as, you know, sometimes as far as morals, it's like, okay, you're taking that too far. And you're not, you know, morally corrupt if you don't do this thing. But as far as family life goes, like, yeah, I knew he would make an amazing husband and an amazing dad because one. Because I saw his. His brother doing it with my sister. But also just because that is one really beautiful silver lining of being raised in the Gospels, that it's like, for the most part, I know sometimes you still get dud Mormon boys, but for the most part, he was just raised to be a really kind and. And good person. So I was like, yeah, I can. Like, he's going through it right now, and it's kind of frustrating, and sometimes we would get annoyed with each other, but I was like, you got to keep that end goal in mind.

John Dehlin [02:51:46] So I love it. I love it. Okay, well, we've got a really good audience in our live stream, and they're making great comments and it's great engagement. So I'm really sad to stop the live stream now, but. But we need a break. It's. It's almost three hours now. It's like 1:30, and we may grab a tiny bit of food or go use the restroom or something, but do not go away. I will create the second live stream in just a second. And for those of you who are joining us asynchronously listening or viewing after the fact, all you got to do is just go right on Mormon stories right next to part two of this amazing episode with. With Thomas and. And Cece. But you go by. I mean, your real. Go by cc. So just. Just click on part two of this amazing interview with Thomas and Sierra Stokes, which is also kind of subtitled healing through a Faith Crisis through music, and you will get to hear four more of Thomas's amazing songs. Now, Cece, do you sing? And do you ever sing Doctor of to Thomas?

Sierra Stokes [02:52:55] Yeah, no, we're. We're a really good match, but that is one thing we do not have in common.

Thomas Stokes [02:53:00] I always tell myself I would marry a musician. Did not happen. No, she has a nice singing voice.

Sierra Stokes [02:53:04] I mean, I'll, like, sing along to his songs at home and stuff, but don't ask me.

John Dehlin [02:53:07] She's a musician of soul.

Sierra Stokes [02:53:10] Yeah, yeah, no, He's.

John Dehlin [02:53:12] She's a musician of wisdom and strength.

Sierra Stokes [02:53:16] Musician of something.

Thomas Stokes [02:53:17] She plays the heart strings.

John Dehlin [02:53:19] She's a musician of your heart.

Thomas Stokes [02:53:20] Straight. Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:53:22] I love it.

Sierra Stokes [02:53:22] I'll take it.

John Dehlin [02:53:23] Okay, well, thank you guys so much for part one. I've loved it so far, and I've done 1500 hours worth of this stuff, and I'm still loving it. So thank you so much.

Sierra Stokes [02:53:32] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:53:32] And we're excited for part two. Don't go away. Come right back for part two of this amazing episode with Thomas and Cece Stokes. I will just quickly say, normally we have Kara Braille with us here today. Normally. Definitely. Super bummed. She's sick. She has laryngitis.

Guest [02:53:51] Oh.

John Dehlin [02:53:52] And she couldn't make it. So I'm here running the studio alone. But, Kara, we hope you feel better. Hope you heal and get better because it's not quite as fun.

Thomas Stokes [02:54:02] Yeah. We want to meet you, Kara, in this.

John Dehlin [02:54:04] In the studio. What's that?

Thomas Stokes [02:54:05] I said we want to meet you, Kara.

John Dehlin [02:54:06] So I don't even know if she's watching. She's hopefully home, getting rest and feeling better. But, Kara, we love you. Hope to see you back here in the studio soon. Soon. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us. So for those of you who are ending part one, email us@mormonstories gml.com with feedback. Thanks to all of you who donate to Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories foundation to make this possible. If you're not a donor, less than one out of a thousand donate. That's fine. If you can't afford to support us. We want to give this content away for free because we just want to help people. But if you do value this content and you're not a supporter, we're always losing donors. Every month. We need to replace them. So please consider becoming a monthly donor today@mormonstories.org click on the donate button and you can help us continue this good work for as long as you're willing to support it. So thanks, everybody, and see you right back for part two of this amazing episode with Thomas and CC Stokes. See you guys soon.

Thomas Stokes [02:55:03] Bye.

Welcome Back: Part Two Begins

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 1486

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome Back to part two of my Mormon Stories interview with Thomas and CeCe Stokes. My name is John Dehlin. It is September 27th, 2021, and as I just mentioned, we are now in part two of an episode that I believe is entitled Healing Through a Faith Crisis with music. We just finished a good 3ish hours with Thomas and CeCe Stokes. The they're a wonderful couple, just talking about their upbringings in the church and Thomas's mission and let's just say cece's healthy but very unorthodox Mormon upbringing and how they eventually ended up meeting. Well, meeting at various stages in their lives, but then dating while Thomas was at BYU after he had served his mission in Chile, and how they had kind of an unorthodox Mormon courtship from the standpoint that cece had not been introduced into the Mormon shame cycle. She was confident in her unorthodox and or Jack Mormonism as, as she kind of jokingly described it. But she was willing to stoop to date an uptight Mormon return missionary in Thomas. And we also talked about how and why Thomas was willing to date Sisi, even though she had a past, let's just say, not the white and delightsome path that orthodox Mormons are raised as it, as it relates to the law of chastity and other types of things. I'm speaking a little bit jokingly, tongue in cheek. You'd have to go back to watch part one to know what I'm talking about. And you should go back to part one and watch what I'm talking about before we jump in now to part two, but without any further ado, the way we left off was that CeCe and Thomas were dating while Thomas was at BYU. They were starting to get serious. They were trying to still obey the honor code and the law of chastity so Thomas wouldn't get kicked out of BYU and out of the temple and out of the church and that sort of thing. But Thomas had had questions about his Mormon testimony dating back from the time of his mission, but also from some of his classes at BYU and his exposure to the gospel topics essays. And so at the point where they meet, they're happy, they're in love, they're close friends, they're thinking about marriage. But Thomas is trying to decide what his relationship with the church is and is it going to be. And I get the sense that he's on the ledge of a faith crisis. And that's where we leave off. So cece and Thomas, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Thomas Stokes [00:02:32] Thank you. Always a pleasure.

John Dehlin [00:02:34] How was that introduction?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:35] Yeah, no, that was spot on. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] And what's it like being in Thomas, your fourth hour of a Mormon Stories interview?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:41] It's pretty surreal. That's weird.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] Is it third or fourth? Like, I've already lost track.

Thomas Stokes [00:02:46] The first one was, like, two hours, 40 minutes.

John Dehlin [00:02:47] Okay, so you're almost in your third hour.

Thomas Stokes [00:02:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:02:49] All right.

John Dehlin [00:02:50] Yeah, yeah. So where do we go from here?

Thomas Stokes [00:02:53] My faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:02:54] Okay, just go for it. So you're at this point, what's. What year is it? And what year. What are your ages?

Discovering Church History Problems

Thomas Stokes [00:02:59] This is the summer of 2018, aka Summer of Greatness, I would say.

Sierra Stokes [00:03:03] Not summer.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:04] Sorry, Fall. Early fall.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] Fall of 2018. So three years. Literally three years ago.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:09] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] You called it your summer of greatness.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:11] It was amazing. Went on adventures, canyoneering, mountain biking. Met the love of. Or not met, because I already knew her, but started dating the love of my life. Broke my collarbone, had a picc line in my body to treat the infection that was in the break. And just, like, wild summer. Just a wild summer, I would say. But as John described pretty accurately, I was on the fence about the church. I was worried about the doubts I had. My shelf was getting heavier and heavier, and I think we should just dive right into the breaking point, if that's all right with you. What caused it?

Sierra Stokes [00:03:52] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:03:52] And, yeah. Anything to say, babe?

Sierra Stokes [00:03:55] No, I don't think so. At this point, I was. Gosh, what? 20?

Thomas Stokes [00:04:02] And you were 23. Yeah, I was 23. You were 20.

Sierra Stokes [00:04:04] So we were both really young, dealing with some heavy stuff, but we made it work.

Thomas Stokes [00:04:09] Yeah. Yeah. So I was in the BYU library one day, and I was doing my homework. And by homework, I mean, like, messing around on Instagram and Facebook. And I saw a post from an old friend on Facebook that had a meme of all the problems with the church. Like, all of them. It was a big meme. It was a jumbo plus size. A lot of text in this room.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] You still have it?

Thomas Stokes [00:04:39] I could probably find it if I tried, but it was like, it had a quote from a general authority and a picture of them at general conference saying, like, something about all the problems with the church have answers. Something like this. And then there was a long list. And it said, like, oh, well, what about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And it listed all of them in small text. And I was like. Took a deep breath. I had already been thinking about it. There were some that I saw that I recognized, some that I didn't recognize. And I Was like, if. If this is the true church, then it can withhold or it can. It can withstand scrutiny and tell our

John Dehlin [00:05:18] listeners what some of the items might have been.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:21] Yeah, let's go for it. So there was blacks in the priesthood. There was polygamy, polyandry, which I was, like, little confused because I didn't know what polyandry meant. But polygamy, polyandry. There was Book of Abraham. There was Kinderhook plates. There was Adam God theory. There was. Oh, man. LGBTQ issues. There was like, yeah, like November 2015 policy, everything. Give me more. And I can guarantee you they were on there.

John Dehlin [00:05:52] It was really comprehensive.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:53] It was comprehensive.

Sierra Stokes [00:05:54] They covered everything.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] More than the stuff. Oh, like Zelf.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:57] Even stuff like Zelf.

John Dehlin [00:05:58] Zelf the White Lamanite.

Thomas Stokes [00:05:59] Zelf the White Lamanite.

John Dehlin [00:06:02] I want to challenge you to find this meme, and we'll add it to the show if you can find it.

Thomas Stokes [00:06:05] Yeah, I'll do my best. I'll see if I can find it. Yeah. So I saw it. I took a deep breath, and I said, here we go. Let's do this. And I started researching, and the first thing that really disturbed me was Adam God theory of all things, because that's

John Dehlin [00:06:22] a big one, actually.

Thomas Stokes [00:06:23] I know, but it's.

John Dehlin [00:06:24] So tell our listeners what that is. Tell us. Tell our listeners.

Thomas Stokes [00:06:27] It's so weird. I'd never heard of it. Brigham Young taught that. I think. I don't know if it was in his later years or whatever. Brigham Young taught that Heavenly Father came down as a man, as Adam. So Adam is literally our Heavenly Father, and that he's the one we need to worship. And I'm like, what?

Guest [00:06:48] That.

Thomas Stokes [00:06:49] That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. How could a prophet of God who literally talks with God say that? And then I learned that it was later disavowed. And I'm like, if it was true and if it was revelation, you know, prophets can't lead us astray. So why is Brigham Young over here teaching totally outlandish false doctrine? Because that was through a believing lens. I was like, how could he teach this blasphemy? Which now I'm like, he was just, you know, crazy, doing his own thing,

Sierra Stokes [00:07:16] saying what he wanted to.

Thomas Stokes [00:07:17] And, you know, the only answer I really got from that one is some kid that I was working with. He was like, oh, yeah. Brigham Young was, like, senile in his later years, and that's why he said that, which I don't know if that's true. I don't I'm not a historian, but that really disturbed me. And then I was like, well, if this is disturbing, what else is going to be this bad? And so I started looking at polygamy. Learned more of the details about that, which I knew most of the details there, but I learned about the coercion and the pressure that Joseph Smith put on those poor, you know, young women, girls even, to marry them. I learned about the dirty side of it. I learned about the Fanny Alger, Oliver Cowdery calling it a dirty, filthy, nasty affair. Emma catching them in the barn together. I learned about.

John Dehlin [00:08:10] Yeah, and that's. We have to. I'll just have to pause there because the Fanny Alger, she's listed by the church as Joseph's first plural wife.

Thomas Stokes [00:08:17] Yeah, but.

John Dehlin [00:08:18] But what is deeply problematic about that? It's like, oh, what's wrong with wife number two after Emma? Well, one of the main problems was that Emma didn't know. And the second main part of the problem was not only had the polygamy revelation not been received yet, which became DNC132, the sealing power had not been received yet. The sealing power didn't come until Kirtland later. And he's having sex with Fanny in the barn before either of those things

Thomas Stokes [00:08:45] came, who I think was 16 or something 17 or was she older?

John Dehlin [00:08:49] I don't know. I don't know her age. Yeah, that's okay. But also if like the Oliver Cowdery is like second elder at the time, in other words, he's like second prophet or co prophet if he's calling it an affair and then he gets excommunicated for calling an affair. Because he clearly, if it was a revelation or from God, no one told him. Why didn't anyone tell him? Because the sealing power and the revelation had been given yet that's the most logical answer. Then why is Joseph Smith excommunicating his co prophet just for calling what was clearly an affair, an affair. Like that's. That's all real problem. Not to mention the fact that Emma doesn't end up getting sealed to Joseph

Thomas Stokes [00:09:29] like the 20th wife.

John Dehlin [00:09:31] Like 20th or 21st wife. In other words, he lies about 20 wives before he ends up actually ever getting sealed to Emma because she finds out.

Thomas Stokes [00:09:39] Not because he comes to her, but because she finds out about it.

John Dehlin [00:09:42] And Sorry, I didn't mean to go on a route.

Thomas Stokes [00:09:43] No, that's okay.

Sierra Stokes [00:09:44] That reminds me though, if I can interrupt too, anytime.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] We want. We want you.

Sierra Stokes [00:09:51] I. I meant to mention this earlier, but all of what you just said about Joseph, you know, deceiving Emma, putting Emma on the back burner, like, we all know her story is extremely sad and that he really put her through the wringer. And that's actually something that was very defining in my youth, was that one day my. My mom and dad were talking about the church with it, which they didn't do very often because, again, they gave us freedom if we wanted to go, if we didn't want to go. They didn't want to sway us in either direction. But I do remember they were talking about the church. And I know for a fact that my mom specifically feels very strongly about Joseph Smith. And I remember she said I must

John Dehlin [00:10:32] have been in a good way or a bad way.

Sierra Stokes [00:10:34] Bad way. Oh, very bad way.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] Oh, really?

Sierra Stokes [00:10:36] Yes. And so this might have even be been before I was baptized, which I was baptized late at 12 years old, but whenever she said this, I was pretty young, and it has still stuck with me to this day. She said that Joseph Smith broke Emma's heart. And I didn't know much about Joseph Smith even after that. I didn't find out that much about him. I just knew that he was, you know, the prophet, and I knew the story of the first vision and all of that. But now that we've dug into church history a little bit more together, even as a couple, Thomas and I, we. We've listened to podcasts and stuff about all of his wives and his polygamy silly business. And it's just so true. Like, he. He broke Emma's heart. And that's something I think, that was really defining for me too, in my youth, was that he, you know, put her through that. And I forgot to mention that earlier,

Thomas Stokes [00:11:29] but Cece's always been big on love and, you know, being a good. She's a helpless romantic, and so not even that.

Sierra Stokes [00:11:38] It's just being a good husband.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:40] Yeah. So hearing that from an early age, Joseph broke Emma's heart. It's true.

Sierra Stokes [00:11:44] Yeah. That's very defining for me.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:46] And, yeah. Impact impacted you.

Sierra Stokes [00:11:49] Continue.

Guest [00:11:49] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:50] So polygamy, where were we?

John Dehlin [00:11:53] Just listing all the.

Thomas Stokes [00:11:54] Listing all the things. Yeah. So polygamy was bad. Blacks in the priesthood were bad too. Because on my mission, I realized this is going back ways, but I realized that it wasn't just the priesthood. It was temple blessings. It was being sealed to your family. It was everything.

John Dehlin [00:12:07] Tell the listeners what, for their non Mormon listeners. So tell them what. What the church's deal was there.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:14] Yeah. Up until 1978.

John Dehlin [00:12:16] So from 18, whatever, 40, let's just say 44.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] Since Joseph Smith died to 1978.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:22] Yeah. The church excluded black people or anyone from. With African descent. Even if you had like a 16th, you know, 16th part after drop of blood or anything.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] Cain's blood.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:34] Any drop of Cain's blood. And you were excluded from holding the priesthood and from enjoying the blessings of the temple, which included, you know, baptisms for the dead, ceilings, endowment, being a general authority. Anything.

John Dehlin [00:12:46] Temple, marriage, temple.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:47] Yeah, all of it.

Sierra Stokes [00:12:48] Which is like what you're.

Thomas Stokes [00:12:50] The whole.

Sierra Stokes [00:12:50] That's the main goal of our life

Thomas Stokes [00:12:52] here on this planet, you know, so that was really hard. I dove more into it than I ever had before. I learned about, like them lifting it because BYU or because the tax exemption status was being threatened and people were boycotting BYU sports because they were extremely late to the game on the civil rights movement. They're late to every single civil rights movement there is. They're currently late to LGBT

John Dehlin [00:13:22] equality.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:23] Equality. And they will be for a long time. And they're late to everything.

Sierra Stokes [00:13:30] So.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:31] Yeah, that was big.

John Dehlin [00:13:33] Yeah. What are the ones who are really weighing heavily on you?

Thomas Stokes [00:13:36] I didn't. I should have mentioned this first, but the Book of Abraham was.

John Dehlin [00:13:38] What about it? Tell our listeners what that is.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:40] Yes, the Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith bought some mummies and papyri. I think that's the plural. How you say it, off of this traveling showman sale that he would.

Sierra Stokes [00:13:54] He would.

Thomas Stokes [00:13:55] Yeah, merchant type guy. And he saw the scrolls and said, I'm going to translate these and translated them and said that they were written by the hand of Abraham, that they were a record of his life and his revelations. It had all sorts of pretty wild doctrine in the Book of Abraham, some wild stuff. And he claimed to know that that's what those scrolls said. And there were facsimiles or that had like pictures on it and hieroglyphics and depictions of different things that I won't say what they are yet. But Joseph Smith said, this is Abraham being sacrificed on an altar. This facsimile number two, I think is. Is talking about the alignment of the planets and where God lives and God giving the. The holy signs of the priesthood and this, that, that. And just a huge elaborate translation of these documents, only to later find out once I won't go through all the historical details. But the Rosetta Stone was discovered and people began to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. And when the time came, they thought that the scrolls were lost, but they found them. Long story short, in the 60s, I believe they were translated again, this time by Egyptian scholars and they were found to be nothing more than standard funerary texts that, you know, did not mention Abraham at all. Nothing.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] And it's slightly worse than that because by 1912, the New York Times does a front page article where Egyptologists, they didn't have the full papyru, but they had the facsimiles. Because the facsimiles had been reproduced.

Thomas Stokes [00:15:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:37] In newspapers or the scriptures or whatever. And The Egyptologists in 1912 translated the facsimiles.

Thomas Stokes [00:15:44] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:15:45] They could show immediately that the word Abraham didn't even appear anywhere on them. And that was in the New York Times. So the brethren have known for at least 100 years, 110 years that the Book of Abraham was not a translation. But you know, there was no accountability, no reconciliation, no admission, you know.

Thomas Stokes [00:16:06] Yeah. Totally hidden. They kept it under wraps from their members by telling them that anything that didn't go with the doctrine was anti Mormon and could not be trusted. And. And when I finally got ahold of that and really looked into the Book of Abraham outside of the gospel topics essays, it became abundantly clear that the Book of Abraham was a fabrication. And that that right there was huge. That led me to question the Book of Mormon. And that's when I learned more about the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. I learned more about the Seer Stone, like we said in part one. That was problematic for me. Just everything you can imagine. And then I actually, I want to say I found out about Mormon stories through my cousin who had left the church because I came to her and I was like, help, what is happening? And so she directed me to Mormon stories. And of course that led me to learn even more. The Grant Palmer episode was huge. The Richard Bushman episode was huge. Michael Cohen, Is it Coe? Michael Coe.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] What was it about those episodes that were meaningful to you? Here were which ones?

Thomas Stokes [00:17:19] Historians, scholars, smart people, non biased, that did their research the way that research is supposed to be done. And it was found that the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith ripped it apart. The entire church was demonstrably untrue. It's false. And that was a huge blow to my heart. I felt it deep inside and it hurt really bad. From then I started experiencing major anxiety. Did not know what it was. I just thought it was either the spirit leaving or me being sad about it. I had no idea it was freaking me out because I had never felt anxiety before. My whole world came crashing down. And part of this was, you know, I wanted so bad to Bring Cece into the gospel and have her know the true joy of it. And I said, how can I do that now when. When I know it's not true?

John Dehlin [00:18:27] That may have also been kind of your deal with your parents. It's like, hey, I'm bringing her into the church.

Thomas Stokes [00:18:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:31] Yeah. And they're probably looking forward to that.

Thomas Stokes [00:18:33] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] Expecting that.

Thomas Stokes [00:18:34] Yeah, they were excited about that.

Sierra Stokes [00:18:36] So I didn't even know this. Where on the timeline did you. Did you find that meme on the timeline of us dating? Like, how long have we been dating?

Thomas Stokes [00:18:47] We had been dating for, like, two months.

Sierra Stokes [00:18:50] Okay. Right off the bat.

Thomas Stokes [00:18:53] Yeah, we had been dating for about two months, I think. And, yeah, I was just, like, torn, Totally torn apart by it. I. There was a moment, you know, when things started to get slightly better. I decided to tell Cece about it. I was like, cece. And I wanted to be such a good example for her. I wanted to bring her back. I wanted to, you know, show her the joy of the gospel. But I was like, I can't lie to her. I can't fake put. I can't put on a show. And if this is the woman I love, I need to be honest. So we were driving to the. The pet store to get a betta fish for our nephew's birthday, and I looked at her and I was like, cece, I don't know if the church is true anymore. And she was shocked. I'll go to you for how you felt.

Sierra Stokes [00:19:43] Yeah, I honestly, I can't even say I remember exactly how I felt. But, yeah, it was. I. I guess just the best word is I was a little bit shocked. And it was jarring because up until this point, he had tried to show how steadfast he could be. And he, you know, was trying to help me come to the light rather than him come to the dark. And so for him to just say it like that, point blank, because he hadn't told me. Again, he's educated me on pretty much all of the church history that I know, because he cares to do a lot more research about it than I do. But at that point, I didn't know what he'd been looking into that made him so unsure all of a sudden. And so I didn't want him to, you know, jump into anything that he wasn't completely sure about. And that's when I told him that he needed to be sure before leaving the church, because I knew that was going to be a really big deal. Like, I. I don't know anybody outside of My parents, who have, like, really, really left the church, but when they did it, I wasn't paying attention.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] So by this point, your parents were totally out?

Sierra Stokes [00:21:01] Yeah. Yep. They'd been out for a while, and so. But again, yeah, I wasn't paying attention to them when they left. And I think they did it kind of quietly for our sakes. So then here's my boyfriend, who I really like, and I'm gonna have to go through all of this with him. And so I was like, you need to be sure.

Thomas Stokes [00:21:19] Yeah. She was like, let's keep going to church every week. You need to read the scriptures. You need to study outside. You need to pray. You need to do all the things. I remember we were laying on the couch when she was telling me all this, and I was very grateful for that, because if she would have said, let's get out now, I would not have been ready. I would have freaked out. If she was like, let's just do whatever we want now, I would have freezed.

Sierra Stokes [00:21:40] I was. To that point. You were not.

Thomas Stokes [00:21:44] Definitely not point. It would have horrified me to move that fast, because no matter what it is in life, I'm. I kind of move slow on any sort of transition, whether it be with a relationship, you know, new beginnings, which is interesting because, like, being raised in a military family, I'm pretty good at adapting. But with big things like that, I guess it was going to take me a while. So, yeah, that happened. My shelf collapsed. One quick story. My best friend, the one that commented on part one, we went to dinner, and it was really weighing heavily on my mind. We were just at Denny's, and I was like, dude, what do you think about church? Like, how are you feeling about it? And he goes, there are some things that I'm not so sure about. And I slammed my hands on the table, and I was like, right. And we spent the, like, hours just talking about it. After we went to the BYU football stadium parking lot, and we're just talking about what we were going to do, what we believed, and how this was all going to work for hours. And I'm just bawling my eyes out. That was a huge moment. It was a core memory, one of, like, the most impactful conversations I have ever had. And it was. It was nice to know that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't the crazy one, you know? And then, of course, as time went on, more and more people I knew and were leaving.

Sierra Stokes [00:23:11] And, yeah, it was interesting about the same time that we were kind of heading out the Door. I feel like Thomas clicked this radar on and he started to realize, or he started to notice our friends around us. He was like, I kind of feel like they're on the same page as us. And sure enough, anytime he would reach out, we. We would talk to them about it and they'd be like, yeah, we're kind of on our way out too. And so we got really. Yeah, we got really lucky that he was paying attention to that. And so we had a couple of really good friends that we were able to go through that transition with because they were in the exact same boat.

Thomas Stokes [00:23:55] So if you're watching, we love you.

Guest [00:23:58] We didn't feel alone.

Sierra Stokes [00:23:59] We were like, okay, we're not the only ones. So that was good.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:03] Yeah, it was amazing. Now would be a good time to play the. The next song. Cuz it's all about, you know, the initial realization and horror of a faith crisis.

Thomas Performs a Song About His Faith Crisis

John Dehlin [00:24:14] What's it called?

Thomas Stokes [00:24:15] Assimilation.

John Dehlin [00:24:16] Assimilation, yeah. And tell us about some of the lyrics that we'll be. That we should be listening for.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] So that we understand kind of a little bit of the interpretation.

Thomas Stokes [00:24:26] So this song. There's a few interesting notes about this song. The first one, the first line of the. Of the song is, I'm scared of what we created. And it originated when I was. Actually, I wrote most of the song before this. But this. This part, we were trying to sleep train our son, and he was being absolute demon, and he was screaming his head off, and we were trying to comfort him. We couldn't. So we just laid him down. We were both at our wit's end. We went to the kitchen. It was completely dark. And then I didn't know what else to do. I was just ridden with anxiety. And I just start chanting. I go, I'm so scared of what we created. That's all I could do. And we both start chanting that. And we just started laughing because what else can you do in a situation like that? So that was the basis for the song. There's another line that I want you to pay attention to that says, it's a kaleidoscope. It all comes spinning in. Is what we learned just a multicolored shit. And I was horrified to say the sh. Word. It's like, my family's gonna hear this. Maybe I should just say P or something like that. And then cece was like, no, you have to say shit.

Sierra Stokes [00:25:34] He came to me in the living room and he was like, which sounds better? And I was like, you know, which one sounds better?

John Dehlin [00:25:42] So, yeah, so language. Language. Warning. Yeah,

Thomas Stokes [00:25:49] only once.

John Dehlin [00:25:49] Pg. No F bombs.

Thomas Stokes [00:25:52] And then one other thing. If you listen to the song on my EP on Bandcamp, it's a full version, not acoustic.

Sierra Stokes [00:25:58] It's.

Thomas Stokes [00:25:58] That's awesome. You'll actually hear at the beginning a really weird voice speaking. And that's actually Spencer W. Kimball's voice from 1980, garbled, pitched up and reversed. So if you want to listen to that just a little fun fact and

John Dehlin [00:26:14] your Bandcamp account again is just look

Thomas Stokes [00:26:16] up big crick, big crick bandcamp.com and you'll find it. You can get an app. It's just like Spotify, but it's free and you just pay the artist directly rather than going doing, like, a subscription. Anyway. I'll get more into the, like, business side of my.

John Dehlin [00:26:34] So the song's assimilation.

Guest [00:26:35] Yep.

Thomas Stokes [00:26:36] Oh, and it's about Joseph Smith. Part of it is about Joseph Smith coming back from the dead to kill us all.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] Okay.

Guest [00:26:54] I'm scared of when we create it Is it a monster? Is it a memory? Is it a ghost From a different reality? And I think it communicated Was it a seance? Was it a miracle I couldn't hear through the thick of the eulogy Tears and you're alive and well I can't say the same for some but before they left they said that's not as bad as it looks and so I'll try my best to preserve my present mood and when it comes I look forward to laying down with you. And I'm scared of Wayne, I've discovered Is it a liar? Is it a holy man? He's coming back from a different reality here he's coming back with a mission of anger and fear he's coming back with a pair of eternity mirs. It's a kaleidoscope it all comes spinning in it's what we learned Just a multicolored. Do I speak too soon or should I gather more from this? I'm not trying to fall. I just rather get off this cliff. I'm scared of when we created here and I'm scared of when we created here. I'm scared of when we created here. I'm scared of when we create it he's coming back to assimilate a seraph and kill. He's coming back to assimilate a seraph and kill. He's coming back to assimilate a seraph and kill.

Thomas Stokes [00:29:52] There you go.

Sierra Stokes [00:29:53] That's one of my favorites.

John Dehlin [00:29:55] You like that?

Sierra Stokes [00:29:56] Yes. That one's.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] That was lovely.

Thomas Stokes [00:29:58] That was my favorite one on the ep. Go Check it out. I really like that one's fun to make.

John Dehlin [00:30:05] What's the seraphim? What is that?

Thomas Stokes [00:30:07] He's coming back to. Oh, he's coming back to assimilate a seraph and kill.

John Dehlin [00:30:13] Tell us what that means.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:14] Joseph Smith is coming back from the dead to take the form of an angel of God and kill us all. It was a dream I had and it scared the shit out of me.

John Dehlin [00:30:24] It was your spooky Mormon hell dream?

Thomas Stokes [00:30:25] It was my spooky Mormon dream, yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:27] Have you seen Book of Mormon musical?

Thomas Stokes [00:30:29] I've heard. I've listened to all the music.

John Dehlin [00:30:30] Okay.

Guest [00:30:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:31] Spooky Mormon hell dream. Well, the audience soap and Clay writes lovely.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:37] Oh, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] Zach says thanks.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:41] Thanks, Denny's.

Guest [00:30:45] All right.

John Dehlin [00:30:45] Well, that's beautiful. Okay, thanks for sharing that.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:48] Yeah, thanks for listening.

Navigating Faith Crisis, Relationships, and Marriage

John Dehlin [00:30:50] So the faith crisis, you hit full faith crisis mode.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:54] Full faith crisis mode.

John Dehlin [00:30:56] But Cece says be careful, go slowly.

Thomas Stokes [00:30:59] Yes, Right. And boy, did I go slowly. It was the slowest ripped off band aid of all time.

John Dehlin [00:31:05] Really.

Thomas Stokes [00:31:05] Oh, took me so long.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] I don't know too. Some people go more than two years, so that's.

Thomas Stokes [00:31:10] Yeah, that's true for you.

John Dehlin [00:31:11] It felt like that.

Thomas Stokes [00:31:12] Mine was about two years. Yeah, year and a half. Two years.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] It's still long.

Thomas Stokes [00:31:15] It was long. Could have been.

Sierra Stokes [00:31:17] I told him to go slow and then by. I don't want to say by the end of it, but maybe by the time you started going to therapy, cuz that was really good for you. He was having an existential crisis like every other week. Mainly to do with, you know, afterlife, like, what's going to become of me as this person that's no longer following the straight and narrow path. And again, I just had to constantly remind him, like, you're a good person. I truly do believe things will work out for people who lead a good life, regardless of whether or not they're part of religion or not. And so, yeah, like Thomas said, the band aid came off really slow. And by the time he did start going to therapy, I was to the point where I was like, you. Like, we can like. I don't feel like I was rushing you, but to go to therapy. No, just to like come to the conclusion that everything was going to be okay in the end, basically okay. But yeah, I. I think it was just my mindset that I'd always had, you know, that if you're a good person. Yeah. The whole idea of like the. The tears of heaven and like being judged and kind of getting sorted into your different pools of however moral you were in life, like, that was really bizarre to me. And he did struggle with that a lot towards the middle of his faith crisis, I think. And so, yeah, we kind of had to. I kind of had to keep things moving because he would get really stuck in that, like, horrible mindset of fear.

Thomas Stokes [00:32:58] Yeah, I was so, so scared every day because once that faith crisis happened, I knew the church wasn't true. And even knowing I was still so indoctrinated with guilt, fear, and shame that I wanted to keep going to church. And I wanted to. I wanted to do everything I should be doing. I wanted to please my parents especially. That was a big one because, you know, they had gone through a lot. Our whole family had gone through a lot. And I feel like I owed it to them and I owed it to my entire family to stay in the church. And so when that faith crisis hit in fall of 2018, my heart was out. I was like, this is not true. But it was literally all just deconditioning, I guess you could call it from then on. So I learned to let go of a lot of things, especially because I knew the consequences, the eternal consequences weren't going to be as severe as I thought. You know, law of chastity, you know, I let that one go. Um, and I felt, you know, surprisingly, I was like, I don't feel bad.

Sierra Stokes [00:34:18] I feel a little lighter.

John Dehlin [00:34:19] Yeah, that's a fun one to let go.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:21] Yeah, it was. It was not easy, but. But like, once I did let go, it was. It was fine.

John Dehlin [00:34:28] It was so hard.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:29] I know, right?

John Dehlin [00:34:30] At first it was just terrible.

Thomas Stokes [00:34:31] It was so difficult.

John Dehlin [00:34:33] But then I get used to it, you know?

Thomas Stokes [00:34:35] Yeah, I just deal with it now.

John Dehlin [00:34:39] No, but that's a big deal.

Sierra Stokes [00:34:40] So.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] Okay, wait, you're still at byu?

Thomas Stokes [00:34:42] I'm at byu.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] So you're still at byu, you're still under the honor code, and you guys decide to become sexually active, which is what, you know, you. You waited some time, cece, for that timeout. But also, you have to realize you have to hide it now because you could get kicked out of BYU and have your whole. Your education jeopardized and you have to hide it from your bishop and life. You have to go to the do a temple recommend interview for any reason. So it's. Let's just spend a little bit of time on that for our non Mormons who have no idea what does it mean for a return missionary BYU student to decide to become sexually active with someone he's not married to.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:21] Definitely kicked out of byu, If I got caught, possibly, definitely disfellowshipped, possibly excommunicated. That was what I was looking at. And I'm like.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] Which is like, Mormon death penalty, basically.

Guest [00:35:34] I was.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:35] The only reason I was scared is not because of eternal consequences. I was scared because my parents. I didn't want to let them down. I was. I was. I didn't want to let them down because they had, you know, worked so hard to teach me these things. And here I was not following it. And so I knew the church wasn't true.

Guest [00:35:56] And.

Thomas Stokes [00:35:57] And yet still I held on to that social. And, you know, the social aspect of. And the structure that I was given, I held onto that. I clung to it.

John Dehlin [00:36:08] And so real, real quick, what if somebody says you became sexually. You. You became sexually active as a way. Well, you lost your faith as a way to justify wanting to become sexually active.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:21] Yeah, that was my biggest fear, because

Sierra Stokes [00:36:23] I was a big one.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:24] I was, like, so hung up on that because I'm like, I didn't want my family to think that cece, okay, this is big for me. I didn't want my family to think that the love of my life was dragging me to hell.

John Dehlin [00:36:39] That's huge.

Thomas Stokes [00:36:40] I didn't admit that to cece. I didn't admit that to my parents. And I finally opened up about a year and a half later in therapy, and I just broke down because I was like, that was. It was totally separate for me because I spent all this time trying to get cece to come to the church because. And I was. She knows how much of a hard ass I was. Like, I was not going to budge. It was not. I was not going to budge because I knew how I wanted to live and what I believed. And when that came crashing down, I'm like, well, you know, what do I do now? Does any of it even matter? And, like, does the law of chastity matter? Do the commandments matter? Drinking, smoking, whatever, like, going to church, does any of it matter? And, yeah, so to anyone that says, like, you just wanted to sin, you can say that it's not true. And, you know, I don't think looking into someone's life like that is a very accurate, accurate way of, you know, judging them. You know, there you just have to know what it's like to go through a faith crisis and to have your beliefs stripped away from you. And that realization, for me, you know, after that, it was like, well, it doesn't matter. You know, maybe sexuality is a healthy thing that should be celebrated with the One you love and. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:07] Cece, would you have ever, like. Would you remember ever having, like, a explicit conversation? Like, I know that passions are flowing and that it's, like, biological to just want to have some business time, but would you have ever, like, had a point where once he lost his belief to make a case, like, a logical argument for why it's actually a good and healthy thing? Or would that not have even been something you tried to talk about, not

Thomas Stokes [00:38:34] ours, just in case.

Sierra Stokes [00:38:35] Yeah. I was going to ask if you wanted to talk about that. How much do you want to go into that?

Thomas Stokes [00:38:38] I mean, you don't have to go, like, super details, but I'll. I'll start talking.

Sierra Stokes [00:38:42] Yeah, yeah, you go. Sorry. He's gonna kind of answer your question for me, and I'll pick it up.

Thomas Stokes [00:38:46] Yeah, I want you to answer this because. But, like, basically, by the time I felt. I felt bad, even though I knew the church wasn't true, I still was holding out for a while. It wasn't like, night and day. And then by the time our. My sister's wedding came around, my little sister, which was at the very end of December, we had a conversation at the wedding, and she was like, what do you think about. About sexual activity? Sex. And I was a little hesitant, but I. It was that. It was that trip that I decided that it was okay.

Sierra Stokes [00:39:28] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:28] And you can pick that up. Sorry, I didn't mean to, like.

Sierra Stokes [00:39:30] Yeah, no, no. I wanted you to explain what you wanted to in case I said something. You want me to.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:37] It's fine.

Sierra Stokes [00:39:40] So, yeah, like he said, I. I mean, I'd kind of started to wear him down a couple of months before that, and he was definitely.

Thomas Stokes [00:39:48] You make it sound like you're just, like, beating.

Sierra Stokes [00:39:50] You're just a rock. And I was just like. But so all through that fall, he was already breaking the honor code, and he was already having to be very careful about nobody finding out that we were not being as chaste as you're expected to. But then, yeah, like he said, somewhere between kissing and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, technically, I don't understand how the Mormons view virginity. Like, when it's. When it's broken and when it's weird, man.

John Dehlin [00:40:24] Especially on Reddit right now.

Sierra Stokes [00:40:26] Yeah. Like, I don't know where they draw that line, but I think we had crossed that line without going all the way. And. And. But by the end of December, I was like, you know what? Like, we. We've talked so many times about how we feel about each other. What we expect from our futures together. Because we do see a future together. And so I was like, why. Why is it so demanded that we wait? You know, like, what's the difference between doing it now, when we know we love each other and when we're married, if we ever get married?

Thomas Stokes [00:40:59] You know, like, mother, if you're watching this, I'm so sorry. I love you.

Sierra Stokes [00:41:02] Yeah, we're just bearing all our hair, but, yeah, I just. I did get pretty explicit, and I drilled my case home.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:14] She had a notebook, a PowerPoint presentation. This is why it's hard.

Sierra Stokes [00:41:18] When we were.

Guest [00:41:20] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:41:21] When we were at his sister's wedding, and I think he just wanted to get through the temple mostly. And then after that, he was like, you know what? Like, I'm. I'm just gonna let go of it because.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:33] Which. Being in the temple, this is not to throw shade on my sister. On my sister's ceiling, you know, it was beautiful for them, but I did not feel. I didn't feel.

Sierra Stokes [00:41:51] Didn't feel like you wanted it for yourself?

Thomas Stokes [00:41:53] No.

John Dehlin [00:41:54] And you didn't feel like.

Thomas Stokes [00:41:57] No, I didn't feel like I needed the temple in my life. And that's. That was like. I went in, I'm like, why is this everything we're taught to strive for? And I.

John Dehlin [00:42:09] Were you disappointed? Was it, like, let down?

Thomas Stokes [00:42:11] I had seen ceilings before, and every time, it's Just describe what.

John Dehlin [00:42:17] What it was like. No, not. Okay. Just. Yeah. Just to reiterate, I'm gonna give you cover. This isn't about how much you love your sister. It's not about how much you love her marriage or her partner.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:29] It's not about the day overall. We're talking about the LDS Church's temple wedding ceremony, separate from his incredible love for his sister and her husband and all the family.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:42] I appreciate that. That's.

John Dehlin [00:42:43] The.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:44] This is. Thank you for saying this.

John Dehlin [00:42:45] Actual sermon.

Thomas Stokes [00:42:46] Hard to talk about. I. Being in there. Anything related to the temple always disturbed me. The. Oh, man. Just being there, I just felt like this is so contrived. This is so obviously not of God. And I know that's gonna break some people's heart if they're listening. And I'm so sorry, but it's. It just didn't. And I know it felt like that for them, but for me, it did not.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] And was it the words being said? Was it the sealer?

Thomas Stokes [00:43:28] The sealer. You know, he's just there. You know, he's not celebrating the love of two human beings. He's celebrating the fact that These two people are still in the church and that they're gonn with, you know, their covenant path. And I compare that to our wedding. We eloped, we were on the beach side, wrote our own vows to each other, and I bawled my eyes out. And I get. I get people bawl their eyes out at ceilings too, but it just made. It makes so much more sense to me to have a wedding where I'm making my own covenants to her and she's making her own covenants to me. We're not doing handshakes. We're not in weird robes. We're not, you know, we're not just going. We're not going through some contrived ceremony that an old guy is officiating who's never met us before. And so being in that ceremony was a big moment for me because I was like, this is. I'm sorry, this is not what I want. And it really hurts because I gave my sister a hug in the ceiling room, and she says, I hope to see you here one day. And I said, okay, I will. Because I had that wall up, and I said, okay, I will. Don't worry. And the wall for listeners now, I mentioned having a wall between my family members. Anytime that they said something I didn't agree with, I would just say, okay, I would just agree and bottle it up. And that's what I did there, too, which was super hard because even now, I have a hard time expressing my opinion to my family about the church because I know it's so sacred for them. The last thing I want to do is tear down their beliefs and make them feel bad. But at what point do I have to. At what point is it time for me to just be a little more authentic? So, yeah, that was

Guest [00:45:28] hard.

Sierra Stokes [00:45:30] You got it out okay.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:31] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:45:32] And, yeah. So right after that, I think that was very eye opening for him as far as our physical relationship. And. And from there, I feel like it almost got better. Would you agree?

Thomas Stokes [00:45:48] What, our relationship?

Sierra Stokes [00:45:51] Yeah, just in general.

Thomas Stokes [00:45:54] Everything got better after that. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:45:55] You were just better at releasing, I think, after that because I feel like that was really the biggest milestone was because that had been weighing on him. Let's see, his sister got engaged in October. I want to say.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:07] No, it was. It was earlier than. That was August.

Sierra Stokes [00:46:09] August. Okay. And so that entire time, it's like, okay, you know that they're gonna have a temple ceremony. I obviously wasn't allowed in.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:16] Oh, yeah, that wasn't an issue.

Sierra Stokes [00:46:18] I. I sat. I just wasn't worthy. And So I.

John Dehlin [00:46:23] Wait, how is it that you weren't but he was? Well, I guess you don't have to answer that if there's.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:27] Oh, no, I was not worthy. Let's be clear.

John Dehlin [00:46:29] Oh, you. Neither of you were worthy.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:31] I shouldn't have. I mean, shouldn't have gone in.

Sierra Stokes [00:46:34] He had to BS his interview.

Thomas Stokes [00:46:36] I BS my temple. Could have L then, no, because it was obvious that she couldn't be in cuz she had slept with people. She had lived with her boyfriend, everyone

John Dehlin [00:46:46] gone through the steps.

Sierra Stokes [00:46:47] I would have had to go a lot further back than him.

John Dehlin [00:46:49] And so, okay, so people would have known she had had sex that she hadn't repented for. So even though you guys were both messing, even though that was long in the past and you guys were both messing around equally, everyone transgressions were a

Sierra Stokes [00:47:05] lot more recent and invisible.

Thomas Stokes [00:47:07] Invisible.

Sierra Stokes [00:47:08] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] Isn't that weird?

Thomas Stokes [00:47:10] Yes.

Sierra Stokes [00:47:10] And so I was like. I was like, well, your family. I was like, your family knows that I was living with someone. With somebody. So I was like, I. I don't feel like I need to go through the process to be able to go through the temple. Like, I'm okay with it. I'm not offended. I'll just stay outside. And so I literally, like, as Thomas's day, I had to sit in the car for like an hour and a half to two hours babysitting all the kids. Yeah, they left all their kids with me, obviously, because the kids can't go in.

Thomas Stokes [00:47:36] There were like five kids.

Sierra Stokes [00:47:37] Yeah. And at the time, it was just funny. And I was fine to watch all the kids because they were being super cute and they were doing funny things. But looking back, I'm like, you had to ditch me and leave me in the car because I can't go there. No, I'm fine with it.

John Dehlin [00:47:51] No.

Sierra Stokes [00:47:51] No hard feelings whatsoever. But it's just so funny that you, you know, like, that's what I did for his sister's wedding was I sat in the car and he went through the temple. But he went through with a super heavy heart because it just felt so wrong and because he'd had to lie to get there because he was still pleasing his family and so.

John Dehlin [00:48:10] And without you.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:12] Yeah, I was without my.

Sierra Stokes [00:48:13] And so that had weighed on him for like six months because he's like, I know we're gonna have to do it this way.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:18] And I was like, I didn't believe the truth was true. I didn't have my wife with me. The temple ceremony for me is weird. Both the Ceiling and the endowment. And I had lied to go to get my recommend renewed.

Sierra Stokes [00:48:29] And your family was like, okay, you're next.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:31] And my family was like, hey, you're next. It was a. It was a rough time. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [00:48:35] And that's what I'm saying. After that, after you got through, I felt like he was a lot better at releasing. And from there, we started to have conversations with family. Family members, which we'll get into.

Thomas Stokes [00:48:43] No, it was a whole year after that. So.

John Dehlin [00:48:45] Yeah. To pause where you are, I just wanted to say one thing. I. I ask about sex almost every interview I've ever, you know, done, especially in the past several years. And I think most people get it, but some don't. And they write in, watch out. Why are you so obsessed about sex? I am not obsessed about sex.

Thomas Stokes [00:49:02] I think the Mormon Church is obsessed about sex.

John Dehlin [00:49:04] What's that?

Thomas Stokes [00:49:05] The Mormon Church is obsessed about sex?

John Dehlin [00:49:07] No, I think I'm. I'm. I am very average, probably in all the ways in terms of sex. But. But tell me if I'm wrong. Was this a major issue for you guys that weighed on you very heavily for a long period of time? I don't think I'm just making that up. I think. I think it's that the Mormon Church is obsessed about sex, but that ends up just this whole temple shame thing about how, like, what you have to do to be able to go to a wedding of a family member. Right. Like. Like, you know, when we talk about Stephen Hassan's bite model, you know, the way that the church controls behavior and then they control your information and your. In your thoughts and then use emotion to shame you or make you feel fear. This whole idea of you have to be worthy to go to the temple, but your family members getting married. So you either have to shape up and pay your tithing and become moral, or everyone's going to know that you're unworthy and wonder why you aren't worthy to be there, you know, or you have to lie to get in. And, you know, just the fact that people are being excluded from what should be this wonderful, marvelous ceremony. Of course the church has the right to exclude who they want from the temple, but it is super, and I'll just say it, it's super cultish that a sister or a parent or a child or a loved one, a fiance, girlfriend, is excluded from a wedding. You know, and that and the accompanying. It makes the whisper campaigns like, why isn't Cece there? Well, you know, that Cece, I had

Sierra Stokes [00:50:43] to wear it like that. Was my badge for the day.

Thomas Stokes [00:50:46] Scarlet Letter, dude.

Sierra Stokes [00:50:48] And my parents weren't at my sister's either. We were all outside. I remember us all being on the ground.

John Dehlin [00:50:55] Your parents weren't at your sister's wed. Their own daughters wedding.

Sierra Stokes [00:50:59] And again, I was like a teenager and I. I wasn't paying attention to all the little details. But looking back, I'm like, I think that probably made my mom especially so much more sad than she felt like she was allowed to let on, because my sister was just so happy to be going through the temple with her husband. But it's like, you know, you have to, like, you literally have to leave people behind on your wedding day because they're living life differently than you. And it's really. It's interesting.

Thomas Stokes [00:51:26] They're just not worthy to enter the house of the Lord. Babe, come on.

Sierra Stokes [00:51:29] Yeah, it's so the.

John Dehlin [00:51:31] So the shame and the control and you have to pay 10% to even go to the temple. So it's also a place to get money. Yeah, it's just. It's one of the just most egregious, outstanding. One of several really egregious, outstanding things that just half has to change. Mormon church. Let any family member go to a temple wedding. Don't require money to go to a temple wedding. And don't exclude people in ways that are shaming and make everyone speculate about why they're not there. It's just a really, like, if you don't want people to call you a cult, abolish this practice. That will get you a long way.

Thomas Stokes [00:52:12] Mormon secret agents listening to this. Of what I said, Mormon secret agents listening to this. You heard the man.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] Listen.

Thomas Stokes [00:52:19] We know you do.

John Dehlin [00:52:20] They listen. Absolutely. Anyway, keep going. So I paused. You keep going. This was a big deal for you guys, right? I'm not just. I'm not injecting my. My own issues into your life.

Sierra Stokes [00:52:32] That was kind of the hump that we got up onto. And then from there, we still had a lot of things that we needed to work out, but I feel like we were able to take courage a little bit more to be like, look, we've already done the worst thing we can do. We had sex like the day after Thomas lied about going through the temple, like, just laying it out. And so, yeah, from there it was like, okay. I don't know if we just felt a little more untouchable or if it was just, you know, past the point of no veil. Yeah, I think we just took that veil down and I mean, mine was already halfway Down.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:08] She drug me down to hell.

Guest [00:53:11] So, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] And really quickly, I joke about that.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:16] Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:53:17] About her being a temptress.

Guest [00:53:18] I joke about it.

John Dehlin [00:53:19] You were very serious before.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:20] It was literally like, that was my defense mechanism. We would have to joke about it or else I would just like. Because that's the last thing I would say.

Sierra Stokes [00:53:26] Like, what if you are a temptress?

Thomas Stokes [00:53:28] One I was like, well, that was my thought before. But when I actually stopped believing, I didn't want other people to think that, you know, you were the cause of my faith crisis. Because it happened. My crisis happened before we were even dating.

Sierra Stokes [00:53:42] How it happened that I trotted in at that time.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] But so really quickly. One of my favorite stories on Mormon stories is when I interviewed Natasha Helfer.

Thomas Stokes [00:53:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:53] About her high school sexual experience and how beautiful it was. But. But how guilt ridden the church made it.

Sierra Stokes [00:54:03] It was tainted.

Guest [00:54:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:04] Yeah. And I'm wondering what that was like for you guys. So just be. Just because you lose your faith doesn't mean the conditioning all melts away.

Sierra Stokes [00:54:12] No, not at all.

John Dehlin [00:54:13] And so I'm won, you know, were you guys able to just really enjoy it or was there like a period where it was awkward or guilt ridden or, you know, you would have deep remorse? Or was the conditioning and wiring not that deep at that point?

Thomas Stokes [00:54:30] For me? I'll answer and then you can go if you haven't.

Guest [00:54:33] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [00:54:35] For me, the guilt, honestly was before I was doing anything really, quote, unquote bad. That's where most of my guilt was, because I was still, like, in. And like, if I would, like, go a little too far, I would feel super bad. But once I actually stopped believing and we actually did, you know, have sex and. And do all that, I did not feel super bad about it, which is I'm really happy about. I felt bad for the lying to. Or like, not lying, but like, hiding from my family. That's what I felt bad about.

Sierra Stokes [00:55:07] Yeah, that. That continues.

Thomas Stokes [00:55:09] Hiding never really is good.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] Feels gross.

Sierra Stokes [00:55:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gross is a good word for it. Like, we both felt like we weren't doing anything wrong at this point. Because once he, you know, once he reached that point, he was like, okay, you're right. This is a natural thing. This is a great bonding thing between humans. But to have to hide it feels gross. And so I don't know that you. I don't want to speak for you. Maybe you felt more guilt than you let on, but it was never so bad that we had any awkward periods or that we decided to, like, not do it again. Yeah, like from there it was. Yeah, we normalized it in a relationship, which was good.

John Dehlin [00:55:52] Remember, Was it. Did it enhance your relationship?

Thomas Stokes [00:55:54] Yeah, 100. It was, it was great.

Sierra Stokes [00:55:56] After, I don't want to be like, you know, you don't need all the details. But afterwards he was like, okay, that's what I was missing. And I was like, yes, it's a good thing. It really is. Like, people want to make it awkward and uncomfortable and ew. But I'm like, it's a good thing and it's a natural thing.

Thomas Stokes [00:56:11] So keep in mind, when I told her about my faith crisis, she was like, before you go, before you, you know, leave or before you do anything, you need to be sure. And I, we made sure of that. I was sure that the church wasn't true. It was just getting out of the structure that took so long. So honestly. Yeah, we enjoyed.

Guest [00:56:30] Was good.

John Dehlin [00:56:32] How many months or years from the time you started dating till that moment? I'm just curious, how long did you go?

Guest [00:56:38] Six months.

John Dehlin [00:56:38] Six months.

Sierra Stokes [00:56:39] Six months. Yeah. So we make it sound like it was really drawn out, which I think again, to us it felt like it was because we were just trying to work through so much stuff. But in the long, like, looking at it now, it was, it was pretty short.

John Dehlin [00:56:55] We moved pretty fast. By non Mormon standard. Six months is probably quite a long time, I guess.

Sierra Stokes [00:57:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] Really quick. I'll share a comment from one of our listeners. Kyle writes, my wife and I chose to not attend my sister's wedding after losing our faith. Everyone was aware that we weren't there. It was a huge topic of conversation and family members would not let it go. Thanks for sharing, Kyle. We're sorry that happened to you. That's just. Yeah, go ahead.

Sierra Stokes [00:57:23] It's just such a juicy, like, piece of gossip in the Mormon communities. Like, oh, so and so isn't taking the sacrament. So and so isn't in the temple. And then they just like, you shouldn't even be allowed that speculation. But you are. Because it's like, okay, they must have done one of these things on this list of no no's. And so, yeah, that's hard. Kudos to them for just choosing not to though.

Thomas Stokes [00:57:45] Yeah, that's hard.

John Dehlin [00:57:46] Integrity. I mean, I mean, I think there's justification either way because you could argue that it's an unjust exclusion.

Thomas Stokes [00:57:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:53] So I'm not throwing shade on anyone that decides not to be honest. And yeah, you know, my brother chose to not be in his daughter's wedding for no other reason than that. He. He felt like it might be dishonest for him.

Sierra Stokes [00:58:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:06] To, you know. You know, he didn't feel good about at the time. And that's a. To be a dad and just to choose your own daughter's wedding and really hard. There's no sin. But then to. To create speculation in everyone else's mind as to why you're not there. Did he cheat? Did he have a porn problem?

Sierra Stokes [00:58:25] You know, I know they just get to run wild with their thoughts, and he's like, they're not even going to ask you. They're just going to assume.

John Dehlin [00:58:31] No, they're not going to ask you.

Thomas Stokes [00:58:35] Yeah. So we get engaged in January, and then we elope in March.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] January of 2019.

Thomas Stokes [00:58:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] And why'd you elope and not. You want to follow Joseph Smith's example, basically?

Thomas Stokes [00:58:51] Right. Well, she always liked the idea of an elopement. And she, again, with her PowerPoint. She had her PowerPoint in her books open, and she gave her presentation on why we should elope. And I was like, that sounds awesome. Let's do it.

Sierra Stokes [00:59:06] It was another point. I mean, you make it sound like you're gung ho now because hindsight's 20 20, and we would not do it any other way. But this was another point of me having to convince him a little bit that it's okay to do things, you know, be a little unorthodox, because again, he just had the issue of family. Like, hey, my family's gonna want to see us, even if it's a civil wedding. But I was like, it's. It's our day, and I'm the bride, and I have always loved the idea of eloping. And so I did have to kind of convince you on that too. It didn't take super long at all.

Guest [00:59:38] I was.

Thomas Stokes [00:59:39] I was on board.

Sierra Stokes [00:59:39] I really was, because I was like, once I named the pros, not having to plan, saving money, blah, blah, blah, the intimacy, like, it really didn't take long. He was like, okay, that sounds great. And so from there, we.

John Dehlin [00:59:53] Did you go to Vegas?

Sierra Stokes [00:59:54] We planned it really quickly. No, actually, we didn't. That would have been really fun.

Guest [01:00:00] We.

Sierra Stokes [01:00:02] We actually had a photographer reach out to us first about doing a style development shoot.

Thomas Stokes [01:00:07] Yeah. Like, as models, not as actually people.

Sierra Stokes [01:00:09] Yeah. He was like, I just need you as, like, content or whatever. And we told him that we felt like it would be dishonest to just, like, get this entire photo shoot for free because it was around the time that we actually wanted to elope and so we were like, if we act it out for him, for his content, we need to, you know, pay him. So. Because it's our actual elopement, and these are the only photos we're gonna have, like, this is gonna be it for us. And he was amazing. Like, he let us take his dad's boat out on Lake Powell. This would have been in March that we did this, correct?

Thomas Stokes [01:00:44] Yeah, it was March.

Sierra Stokes [01:00:45] And so there was just no one else there because it was kind of the off season. And I just borrowed a dress from a dress shop per the photographer's request, because he had connections. Yeah. And he took care of the bouquet. He brought a really cool rug for the aesthetic of the photos. And then we found a secret beach, like a little bay. Yeah. It was really beautiful. And we did write our actual vows, what we wanted to say to each other to make it an official ceremony. Well, I guess we're getting ahead of ourselves. We were already married at this point.

Thomas Stokes [01:01:21] Well, we did the judge. We had to do the. On paper.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:24] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:01:24] We got married at a judge because

Sierra Stokes [01:01:25] the photographer couldn't have officiated us. Yeah, but that was just, like, what, two weeks before?

Thomas Stokes [01:01:30] Yeah, it was just right before. But, like, the actual elopement ceremony that we did for ourselves was. Yeah. On a little.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] So your parents didn't know you were getting. You were eloping?

Thomas Stokes [01:01:38] They knew we were going to, but not when.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:40] And so we did kind of jump or we kind of dropped that on them. The day that we made it official with the judge at his house, we

Thomas Stokes [01:01:48] just sent him a picture of the certificate.

Sierra Stokes [01:01:50] Yeah. And we were like, we did it. Which I think it took them by surprise.

John Dehlin [01:01:53] But what went through their mind?

Thomas Stokes [01:01:55] They were on. My family was not happy.

John Dehlin [01:01:58] What goes through a orthodox Mormon parent's mind when their kids say, we're eloping, we're pregnant.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:05] Are they pregnant? Which we weren't. We just wanted to elope. Yeah, they were.

John Dehlin [01:02:09] Because it's not a temple marriage.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:10] Not a temple marriage.

John Dehlin [01:02:13] That's like the Eagle Scout equivalent for Mormon parenting. If your kids get married, you know, go on a mission and then marry in the temple, you've been a good parent. If the kid doesn't go on the mission and. Or doesn't get married in the temple, you sucked as a parent.

Sierra Stokes [01:02:27] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:02:28] My mom. I've actually talked to my mom about that, and I try to tell her so much. Mom, you're amazing. You're the best woman ever. Like, I wouldn't have it any other way, but there's a Lot of. She's come to me a couple different times about how she thinks she. She failed in certain aspects. I'm like, no, you did not.

Sierra Stokes [01:02:46] Well, and that's just more like unfair church conditioning. Even with his family being completely in. Like, how are they still being guilted just because their children happen to choose different paths? Like, all of that is so complex and weird to me.

John Dehlin [01:03:02] And it also makes your. What should be an amazingly happy day. Your orthodox Mormon parents are kind of viewing it as a disappointment.

Sierra Stokes [01:03:10] Yeah. Yeah. There's always that taint on just every.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:13] Yeah, there's a little taint on every single little thing, which, I mean, we

Sierra Stokes [01:03:16] were so happy to do it, and we, like. We don't regret it.

Thomas Stokes [01:03:19] Bawled my eyes out. It was great.

Sierra Stokes [01:03:20] We don't feel like we should have, like, done a civil marriage and invited guests and all of that, but there's just always.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] Well, I just have to say that,

Sierra Stokes [01:03:29] like, oh, we made our parents sad. No, that's it. That's it. Is that parents are sad. We did it this way.

John Dehlin [01:03:35] Well, that's the other thing. It's not. It's not just parents. It's like, if you are Mormon and all your parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles are all Mormon, then when you get married, not in the temple, everybody's like, what a disappointment. So that I can see why you would want to just elope. Then you don't have to go through. Look at everybody in the eye as they all think of. As you're wondering, they're expecting an invitation in their head that they're all disappointed and saying, well, you guys clearly had sex. You guys. You guys clearly had sex and are probably pregnant, and that's why there's no temple wedding.

Guest [01:04:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:04:14] And who wants to go through that?

Sierra Stokes [01:04:15] I know. Like, that's not fun.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] Was that part of it, maybe subconsciously?

Thomas Stokes [01:04:19] Oh, no, that was def. That. Yeah. You're not overstepping your bounds. That was definitely part of it.

Sierra Stokes [01:04:23] I'm sure they were like, I don't

Thomas Stokes [01:04:24] want to deal with this. Like, let's just go.

Sierra Stokes [01:04:26] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:04:26] By the end, because I had. I had talked to every single one of my family members and, like, even telling some people that I was engaged, like, and that I wasn't gonna do a temple marriage. I could hear the disappointment in their voice, and it was really sad. I'm like, you should be happy.

Guest [01:04:43] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:04:43] You should be jumping for joy that I found the love of my life and I'm gonna get married, but not some people. I told kind of gave that that vibe. And it was kind of sad for

Sierra Stokes [01:04:52] me, which is really funny. It's ironic because we did get that impression from some family members, like, oh, why are you doing it this way? This is, you know, abnormal for us. We were expecting something different. And then we also had issues with our family members wanting to be there and feeling like they were excluded, which

Thomas Stokes [01:05:13] I get that part. I really do.

Sierra Stokes [01:05:15] I get it too. But at the same time, those same family members went through a very exclusive temple ceremony.

Guest [01:05:22] Right?

Sierra Stokes [01:05:23] And so it's like, where are you coming from if we, man, don't want to have anybody there? You know, just so that everybody's on the same page, like, hey, we're not excluding one person over the other. We just want it to be us, too. And they get upset, like, why don't you want us there? And it's like, why didn't you want, you know, if it's your own mom or your own sister, like, why weren't they there? And it's because you let this, you know, this organization dictate who could be at your wedding and your wedding list.

John Dehlin [01:05:51] Like, yeah, that's.

Sierra Stokes [01:05:54] That's ironic.

Thomas Stokes [01:05:55] Super.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] Wow, that's good. I gotta write that down.

Thomas Stokes [01:05:57] Yeah, that's a solid one, Keeper.

Guest [01:05:59] Nice.

Thomas Stokes [01:06:00] I mean, this again, it's not throw shade on any of our family members, but it is a good point. Like, we know that that was the thing for you guys to do. We don't blame you for getting sealed in the temple, but you gotta admit, it's an exclusion. Very exclusive.

Sierra Stokes [01:06:16] Turn the tables.

Thomas Stokes [01:06:17] Yeah, turn the tables a little bit. Try to see it from our point of view. I definitely see it from theirs, and I don't blame them for it. So.

Sierra Stokes [01:06:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:24] Okay, we're getting a. We have a comment that I just want to read. Alan Child videos writes, the church allows for weddings to be performed outside the temple, so all family members can attend. Then those that want go to the temple another time can do so. So this is sort of a believing orthodox Mormon saying, you guys are making the church look bad.

Thomas Stokes [01:06:51] Okay, I'm happy to address that.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] Okay. Because I did. I want to jump on that, too. Okay, go first.

Thomas Stokes [01:06:57] Okay, first of all, I get what you're saying. They do allow that, but that's a recent development in 2019. I believe you. Before 2019, you had to wait a year if you did not immediately get sealed. And even if to do, like, a civil ceremony. To do a civil ceremony. Yeah, but a lot of people get sealed first and then just do, like a Ceremony after. That's great. If that works for you, cool. But at the end of the day, like, that's not the wedding we wanted and that's not the wedding that most people choose. Most people get sealed, have a reception and call it good.

Sierra Stokes [01:07:38] And there's still that exclusivity to be like, okay, everybody's at this ceremony, but then we're gonna go sneak over here and do another ceremony where some people are still not allowed because, you know, you have to do it through the temple ceiling. Does that make sense?

Thomas Stokes [01:07:56] Like there's still, there's still an element of being weird.

Sierra Stokes [01:08:00] Like, you know, that's supposed to be the church's way of saying, okay, we are including all people. But if that was the case, then they would just do away with, you know, only allowing certain people into the temple for the ceremonies. It would just be like, okay, you don't need to have two ceremonies. You can have one and everybody's allowed, like, you know, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:20] My answer was going to be number one. What about the 180, 190 years where people were excluded? This is just a change in the past couple years. You know, that needs, you know, that needs to be accounted for. Don't act like that. That isn't the reality for like almost 200 years of Mormon families. But then the second thing is, is that still in 2021, that's viewed as an inferior choice. So most orthodox Mormons by far don't select that option and choose to exclude so many people because I think it's viewed as like, yeah, well that's what the lower class, less devout Mormons do.

Sierra Stokes [01:09:02] They have too many family members that aren't allowed in.

John Dehlin [01:09:05] I've been excluded, you know, obviously I'm excluded from all Mormon weddings because the church, excuse me, communicated me, but I've seen several weddings in my family where that option to this day has never been chosen. So that's like a, that's like a marketing thing. That's not in reality an opening up.

Thomas Stokes [01:09:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:23] And so I appreciate that we have believing listeners, orthodox listeners listening. I just don't think the point you're making really honestly accurately nullifies our concern about the shame based exclusionary marriage, temple marriage policies that are still very much in effect today. That's what I think.

Thomas Stokes [01:09:43] Maybe one day in the future the culture will shift and the main ceremony will be one that all can attend. But I don't see that happening anytime soon because what do they want to be there for? They want to be there for the moment. You get married or the moment you get sealed and having just a one off, like, separate ceremony.

Sierra Stokes [01:10:05] Oh, this is just like a secondhand ceremony.

Thomas Stokes [01:10:08] Oh, this is for everyone else. I think we're going to see the real ceremony. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:12] So, yeah, let's move on, though, so really, really quickly. I'll just read a comment OR 2. So, H.J. heather Jane writes, the worst thing is not being able to be with my sister on her wedding day. She's my best friend and I was matron of honor, but it felt basically for picture's sake, and I felt excluded.

Sierra Stokes [01:10:34] That's really hard.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] All right, so we talked about your elopement and all the shame and everything, but also how beautiful that moment was for you.

Sierra Stokes [01:10:46] Yeah, yeah. We still 10 out of 10 recommend.

Thomas Stokes [01:10:49] Oh, yeah. Anyone that's getting married, we don't regret it. It's so much better. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:54] So what came next in your story? And. Yeah, was there any aftermath or collateral damage?

Thomas Stokes [01:11:00] They actually chilled out. My family chilled out. Um, we. We had a little ceremony. We had a little reception a few months later where we invited close family and friends. Just really small, low key. And they came to terms with it and it was just fine. So.

Sierra Stokes [01:11:15] Yeah, it was good. It was good.

Guest [01:11:17] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:11:18] They're fine with it now. They love Cece. My family does. I love her, too. Everyone loves Cece.

John Dehlin [01:11:25] That's good. That makes it easier.

Sierra Stokes [01:11:26] Oh, yeah.

Eloping, Starting a Family, and Leaving BYU

John Dehlin [01:11:28] All right, so what came next? You guys get. You guys elope, which means you get married and you're still at BYU at that point.

Thomas Stokes [01:11:34] I am still at byu, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:11:35] He is so close to graduating, and I have to, like, push his butt out the door every day because he's just ready to be done. It's gotten harder, I think his senior year with everything going on. Like, he's obviously not in, but he's attending the church's school. And again, the whole issue with the honor code, like that has to stay under wraps until he's graduated. So we are into like, March, April now. So he's literally like, what, a month from graduating?

Thomas Stokes [01:12:07] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:12:08] Really close.

Thomas Stokes [01:12:10] Holding on by thread.

Sierra Stokes [01:12:11] That was a. That was a really good milestone, too. It's when he was finally done with school.

Thomas Stokes [01:12:15] Yeah. Felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders, so I graduated. And very soon after that, in May, towards the end of May, we decided that we wanted a baby.

Sierra Stokes [01:12:31] Yeah. So we.

John Dehlin [01:12:32] So soon.

Thomas Stokes [01:12:33] Super soon.

Sierra Stokes [01:12:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:34] Just so that everyone who had suspicions that you were pregnant before the elopement would, you know, that would fulfill their objections upon.

Sierra Stokes [01:12:44] You tease him a little Bit. Yeah, we had originally, because up until now, I'm sure everybody has gathered. We're moving pretty fast as far as, you know, I jumped into a relationship right after my last relationship ended, and then we went pretty fast as far as physical relationship. His faith crisis is just, like, on the fast track. And so when we did get married, we were like, we should wait at least a year, if not longer, to even start talking about kids, because we maybe wanted to do like a one year anniversary honeymoon kind of trip, because we didn't really do that. We just did a fun weekend getaway. So, yeah, kids were not in the picture when we first got married. And the reason why that changed so quickly, only, you know, what, two, three months later, was because my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And at the time, that just triggered me, her mother actually passed away from cancer as well before she was able to meet my little half brothers that I have, like, right before my mom was pregnant, when her mother passed away. And so in my mind, I was like, I can't have that happen to me. Which I obviously jumped the gun. My mom, you know, disclaimer. My mom is in remission now. She's doing really well. And so, you know, we didn't have that loss in our family that I was so afraid of. But in the moment I remember I was crying to Thomas one night and I was like, we have to have a baby that my mom can meet.

Thomas Stokes [01:14:23] And how do you say no to that?

Sierra Stokes [01:14:26] Yeah, like, okay, how do you say no to that when. That's. When you're, you know, that's why your wife is asking for kids.

Thomas Stokes [01:14:32] I was down, though.

Sierra Stokes [01:14:33] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:14:33] And so I was a little scared.

Sierra Stokes [01:14:34] We kind of jumped off that cliff really fast. But I'd been around babies since I was 12 with my two younger brothers. All my sisters had babies at this point, and I'd had a lot of exposure to them. And so I felt really pretty good about. That's one thing, you know, being as non Mormon as I was my entire life, I've always felt that I would do well as a young mother, which is pretty common in Mormonism, and so

Thomas Stokes [01:15:02] definitely fit the mold there.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:03] Yeah, that was one thing that I was like, I can do this. This is something that I can do.

Thomas Stokes [01:15:08] And so, yeah. And like, other than obviously Cece's personality as you've seen it, I. I knew she would be such a good mother, and she is. And, man, I'm so happy that you actually like that we. That we had a kid as early as we did. I have Literally no regrets. If we could have our baby right here in the studio, you guys wouldn't have any regrets either. He's so cute.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:29] He really is. He's the light of our lives. And we got pregnant with him. His name is Abel. Really soon after, I asked Thomas if we could start trying.

Thomas Stokes [01:15:39] Pretty sure it was the first try.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:40] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:15:41] So sooner than I. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:43] So we didn't even have time to like, really backtrack and decide if maybe I was jumping the gun. We just had to move forward from there. I want to say you were going to therapy all through my pregnancy. Is that correct?

Thomas Stokes [01:15:56] Nope.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:58] I'll let you take the reins.

Thomas Stokes [01:15:59] Okay.

Sierra Stokes [01:15:59] Because from here your faith crisis kind of evolves into something different with the thought of being a dad.

Thomas Stokes [01:16:06] Yeah. So I knew I was gonna be a dad. This was in the summer of 2019. And it brought up a whole nother slew of questions, like, how are we gonna raise our kid? I was still in the midst of my faith crisis. I didn't believe, but I was still in structurally and like, because of my family pressure, we were still going to

Sierra Stokes [01:16:26] church at this point.

Thomas Stokes [01:16:27] We were still going to church every week even though I didn't believe. It was really weird. It was a weird time.

Sierra Stokes [01:16:32] It was.

Thomas Stokes [01:16:33] But we would talk over and over again about how we wanted to raise Abel. And I was depressed, kind of in denial just because I was so conflicted about what I wanted to do with, you know, as a father. Because there's so much pressure to, you know, from my parents. They expected the baby blessing. They expected. To me, they expected me to be a righteous priesthood holder, to let the, you know, to set the example for my son. And I knew that wasn't going to happen. So we spent most of her pregnancy trying to figure out what we, what we were going to do there and then.

John Dehlin [01:17:17] And for. And for non Mormons who don't know, talk about the baby blessing. I mean, we kind of already covered the fact that not getting married in the temple is a. Is a disappointment. However, what, what then an orthodox Mormon parent would feel would be okay? They had sex before they were married, so they weren't worthy to go into the temple. So now the disaster of an. Of an unfortunate subpar marriage happened again. This is the orthodox Mormon.

Thomas Stokes [01:17:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:44] Parents standpoint. But they can wait a year and then after a year they'll get married and they'll get sealed in the temple. So they can go ahead and still get sealed. And then when any babies come born

Thomas Stokes [01:17:56] in the covenant, they'll be born in

John Dehlin [01:17:57] the covenant where they'll get their baby blessing, which makes them a member of the church. It'll be this happy family occasion. And so we'll have redemption where we get this. We'll get our children back on track, back on the covenant path. Their children will still be a part of the deal. And the one eternal round seal of family, eternal family togetherness will not be broken. And so there won't be any empty chairs. That's what it's all going to work out.

Thomas Stokes [01:18:21] They were banking on that.

Sierra Stokes [01:18:23] Yeah, because we didn't even told them. Okay, so now we've just eloped. We obviously didn't do the temple ceiling, but I do think that they still, I want to say they asked Thomas about it and at that point we were still going to church every Sunday. Thomas felt that he was really out in his heart. But we were like, you know, maybe this is just a phase we're going through and something will happen to us to really help us get back on track, if you will. And so we told his parents that we were actually considering doing a temple ceiling is like a one or two year anniversary milestone event. And that gave them a lot of comfort, I think, because, you know, for us to not get sealed in the temple initially gave them a lot of fear. But then we were like, oh, you know, we're just doing it a little out of order, but we're still going to go through. Gave them reassurance that you weren't completely out.

Thomas Stokes [01:19:19] Even though I was in my heart.

Sierra Stokes [01:19:21] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:19:21] It was literally when in reality we

Sierra Stokes [01:19:23] were just playing with the idea of a temple ceiling as an anniversary thing just in case something should happen, that we realized we'd been in the wrong for the last year. But yeah, it's like, of course that didn't happen all through my pregnancy. We were like, you know, by the time my nine month mark rolled around and we were really close to having Abel, I think we'd completely thrown out the idea of doing the temple ceiling. And we just hadn't told his parents that yet. And so in their minds, like you said, they had two things going for them still, or we had two things going for us still as their children. And that was to do a temple sealing as an anniversary and then to bless the baby.

Thomas Stokes [01:20:01] So the time came around for the pregnancy and Cece wanted.

Sierra Stokes [01:20:06] For the birth, you mean?

Thomas Stokes [01:20:06] Yeah, for the birth. And CeCe wanted to do totally natural birth, no medications. I'll let you take this over. Yeah, but that didn't quite.

Sierra Stokes [01:20:16] Yeah, again, I've been around A lot of babies and birthing in my life, and so I definitely wanted to follow suit after my sisters and try the natural. Try the, you know, the water labor, all of that, all sorts of cool stuff. But 37 weeks rolled around, and they did an ultrasound and found out that he was breach and his head was way up in my ribs, which by 37 weeks, they want him, like, down in my pelvis. You can even be dilated at that point. And so we kind of watched over the next couple of weeks to see if he would flip on his own. But at 37 weeks, when they initially realized he was breached, they just scheduled me for a C section. And we did end up going through with the C section because we tried a couple different procedures to get him flipped. It didn't happen. And by the time the morning came around that we had the C section scheduled, we were just, like, ready to meet him and to have him. So we were like, yeah, let's go through with it. And it worked out.

Thomas Stokes [01:21:19] It worked out.

Sierra Stokes [01:21:20] It was a whirlwind, and it was not my plan, but it worked out.

Thomas Stokes [01:21:23] She was awake during the whole thing, and I got to watch, too. I was over the curtain, just saw the whole thing. It was nuts. Crazy. If you ever. If you've ever seen a C section, you know, it's nuts. Um, funny thing about that, though. Why that's important is because the umbilical cord was wrapped around Abel's neck three times, which, if we tried to do a normal birth, that would have been catastrophic. Catastrophic. And when we got back into the room with him, my mom talked about how she had a vision that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times, and that is what ended up happening. And so that was a pretty crazy experience. Again, maybe she's just in tune with the universe with this. You know, if there is a God, then something.

Sierra Stokes [01:22:13] It's interesting because to her, that that vision was definitely granted by Heavenly Father. Whereas to us, we think about it a lot, we're like, okay. We still find ourselves spiritual, I would say, just not religious.

Thomas Stokes [01:22:25] Her more than me.

Sierra Stokes [01:22:26] Yes. Me a little bit more. And so, yeah, we revisit that often. Like what? I guess that's still just part of the process that we're going through. Part of our journey is like, how do some people still have those, like, psychic tendencies or, you know, revelations that. I feel like your mom would make a better profit, honestly, than some. But it's. It's interesting to. To think about that.

Thomas Stokes [01:22:52] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:22:54] But because it was a C section it went well, and he was delivered safely.

Thomas Stokes [01:22:59] Healthy boy, Abel Thomas Stokes.

John Dehlin [01:23:01] Thank you. Science and modern medicine.

Thomas Stokes [01:23:03] Right? That wouldn't have worked out so well a couple decades ago. Um, so let's see. The. This is big. We had been talking about how we wanted to raise Abel, and we were in the hospital. We had to stay a few days, and cece was taking a nap, and I was holding Abel just looking at him, and he was like, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I had been bawling my eyes out all day, and I was just holding him, and we had a moment of peace. And the most real spiritual experience I could ever describe happened to me. And it just dawned on me as I was looking at him in that quiet room. I was like, I'm not going to raise you in this church. I'm not gonna make you be a part of this. I'm not gonna subject you to the guilt, fear, and shame that I experienced. And that was a game changer. And from there forward, we knew we were never going back. And we haven't been to church since before the birth, and we haven't. Honestly, I haven't looked back with a single bit of regret since then. That was a huge moment for me as a father. And then I told CeCe about it. Was it. I think it was a while later that I told you A little more recently.

Sierra Stokes [01:24:25] Yeah, he kept that to himself for a while.

Thomas Stokes [01:24:27] It was. It was a real special moment.

John Dehlin [01:24:29] Just recently. I'm. I'm. Oh, it was your friend Lauren, right?

Guest [01:24:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:33] Like. Yeah, like, I met. She said that her having a baby was the impetus to her faith crisis. Like, the real one, because it's just like, I don't want to raise a kid this way.

Sierra Stokes [01:24:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:45] And I told her, I. That's one of the less common and, you know, less common reasons people cite for deciding to leave the church. Several people in the comments said that they. That they connected or related to or also felt those same things. And so now you knew Lauren, but also you. You join her basically saying the birth of your child was the beginning of the end. And that's so interesting, because for me, I had my kids before I had my faith crisis, and I had already raised them for 10 or 15 years in the church. And so for me, it was like, how will I be able to ever raise my kids outside of Mormonism? Yeah, that was what I was feeling like, you can't raise a happy, healthy, normal kid without the church. And CC's grinning at me a little bit on that But. But. But. But you felt the opposite. You're like, there's no way in h. I'm raising Abel.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:40] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:25:41] In this church.

Sierra Stokes [01:25:42] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:42] There is no way.

John Dehlin [01:25:43] How it was for you while I

Sierra Stokes [01:25:44] was still pregnant, and his faith crisis was more centered around fatherhood. He was like you. Where he was like, I think we might need the church. Maybe I'm speaking for you here.

Thomas Stokes [01:25:55] No, that's how.

Sierra Stokes [01:25:56] Like, maybe we do need the church to raise a happy, healthy family. But then as soon as he did see him in physical form, he was like, no, that would be corruption, you know?

Guest [01:26:07] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:26:08] You've got to do it differently, so

Thomas Stokes [01:26:10] I'm not gonna taint him.

Sierra Stokes [01:26:11] It was funny how quickly that switched just as soon as he was born, because even up until delivery, Thomas was so, so nervous. And I was like, I think it's gonna be okay. Once you see. Once you see him for the first time. And it really was like, flip of a switch. He's like, okay, this is the. This sets it in concrete.

Confessions, Sexual Shame, and Church Discipline

Thomas Stokes [01:26:29] Yep.

Sierra Stokes [01:26:30] That you are officially ex Mormon.

Thomas Stokes [01:26:31] Yes, absolutely. We didn't cover the bishop's interview. I don't know if you wanted to go back and do that.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] About what?

Thomas Stokes [01:26:38] Me and her worthiness interview to bless my child.

Sierra Stokes [01:26:41] That was just kind of funny.

Thomas Stokes [01:26:44] Just awkward and weird.

Guest [01:26:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:46] Tell the story really quick.

Thomas Stokes [01:26:48] Okay. Speed version. We went. I. I knew I was gonna have to bless Abel, and she was pregnant, and so we were like, maybe we should be, like, quote unquote worthy to do so. So we.

John Dehlin [01:26:58] This is back when you were thinking about whether or not to do it.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:00] Yes. And so we visited the bishop, and the first thing.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:07] I guess this would be the second bishop's interview I've ever had where I have to confess all my.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:13] Yeah. So we.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:14] My transgressions.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:15] We confessed having.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:16] After I was an adult and married, which is really bizarre.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:19] Yeah. You confessed, what, premarital sex to a

John Dehlin [01:27:23] bishop after you'd been married?

Thomas Stokes [01:27:24] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:24] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:25] And then he was, like, pregnant. She was pregnant.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:28] The funniest thing, I was like, okay, yeah, we've had sexual relations, the fruit of our labor. And I'm like, do I look like I regret it? You know, I'm sitting here with a big old baby belly, and it was just. It was very bizarre to me. And as soon as we left, I was like, I don't know how I feel about this. Like, we have to tell this.

John Dehlin [01:27:46] What do you say?

Thomas Stokes [01:27:46] He was like, I can tell you feel remorseful, Thomas, even though I, like, didn't really, but I was Definitely. Like, I understood the gravity of it.

Sierra Stokes [01:27:53] He's acting a little more penitent.

Thomas Stokes [01:27:55] Yeah. And then he was like, I understand. I think I can see that you're penitent, Thomas, but Sierra, I think we need to work on you a little bit more. She was like. She just had like that face, like that sassy face the whole time, probably

Sierra Stokes [01:28:07] a little bit of my body language and just the way that I did convey myself.

John Dehlin [01:28:10] But what were you feeling as you were.

Sierra Stokes [01:28:13] I just.

John Dehlin [01:28:13] That position again.

Sierra Stokes [01:28:15] I just felt like it was none of his business. And so it's like when somebody's just like prying you for information that you're like, you know, you're not privy to tell them, but they're like, acting like it's their job to know. And so you're.

John Dehlin [01:28:30] You're confessing that when you had sex as a teenager, as a young adult.

Thomas Stokes [01:28:34] I mean, technically, you were confessing that too.

Sierra Stokes [01:28:36] Yeah, I think I did mention that. That I had been. Because I think that's almost what he touched on more than us having premarital sex was that I had sex before even Thomas, because, you know, best case scenario is that we had premarital sex, but then at least we got married, right? Whereas. And I. I've been his only partner. And then, you know, looking at me, I'm like, okay, he hasn't been my only partner. I've been doing this for a while. And now I'm supposed to just like, Even though it's in my past and I don't regret any of it, but I also don't like smoking, spend any time thinking about it. I'm supposed to, like, have a six month repentance process. I'm like, no, that's. That part of my life is done. That chapter is closed.

John Dehlin [01:29:16] Did he say you needed. Did he basically put you on probation?

Sierra Stokes [01:29:19] He was acting like we needed to. What did he say we needed to start paying tithing?

Thomas Stokes [01:29:23] He said a matter of months. Literally, the first thing.

John Dehlin [01:29:26] First thing, I need the money. Show me the money.

Thomas Stokes [01:29:28] He's the first thing.

Sierra Stokes [01:29:29] Start paying your tithing. He wanted us to get more involved in the church activities. And then I think he did throughout a date, like, okay, you're looking at being able to bless this far out or, you know, go through the temple this far out. And so, yeah, it was like, okay, I have to, you know, revisit all of these things that I don't even see as transgressions before I can bless the baby that's in my stomach right now. And yeah, it was just very odd. And I felt. I think it did make me kind of mad. And so I came across kind of aggressive, and he was like, okay, Thomas, you're chill. Cece, you're not. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not chill. I've never been chill about bishop interviews. So that was kind of funny that we had that experience and then we didn't follow through with it. I told him I was like, I don't want to start paying tithing. I've never paid tithing in my life.

Thomas Stokes [01:30:18] I was on board at that point because I was just doing it to get the green card for the.

Sierra Stokes [01:30:23] We jumped through the one hoop, and then we were like, we're not gonna do it anymore.

Thomas Stokes [01:30:27] Let's not do that again.

Sierra Stokes [01:30:28] So that was just kind of a funny story we skipped over.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] But was that part of what made you decide not to bless your baby? Honestly?

Thomas Stokes [01:30:36] Yeah, kind of.

Sierra Stokes [01:30:36] Yeah. It's very off putting that. This guy, you know, he was nice enough, but it's like he is some random stranger. We just moved into the ward. We don't know him from Adam, and he's like, okay, this is your first step towards doing the right thing for your unborn baby. You know, it's like they're just giving. They're given so much jurisdiction where they just shouldn't have it, and it's like, where do you get off? What are you doing? So I do think that was kind of a stepping point as well for us, was that big. We didn't want to be told how to raise our kid and what we needed to do. That is so silly if you think about it. I know it's not silly when you're in, but when you're out, it's like, okay, I can't take this little crust of bread. I can't have this little sip of water. And that's gonna make it all better. But it's like, yeah, I don't know.

Thomas Stokes [01:31:25] It's weird.

Sierra Stokes [01:31:26] Comes off kind of super weird.

John Dehlin [01:31:29] You're adults, you're married, you're there, and they're going to try and, like, humiliate you. And it's just so I. This is why I mention it every single time. Shame. Sexual shame is part of the Mormon business model. It's literally the axle around which the wheels of the church turns.

Sierra Stokes [01:31:48] And.

John Dehlin [01:31:49] And there's no greater testament or testimony to that than the fact that as soon as you repent for sexual shame, his response is, give us money, start serving more in the church, and we may Give you something in return. What that sets up is you now are broken and bad and fallen. And you're not going to be made clean until I, your bishop, your church leader, tells you you're clean. And we need to humble you and humiliate you so that now you're broke. You're kind of psychologically broke, where now you owe us for the rest of your life. You better not. And you better not ever do that again.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:29] They create the shame. They create the shame, then equate it to Satan. That's why you feel icky, is because it's Satan in your life. And then they give you the solution. Luckily, cc, that they create, they give

John Dehlin [01:32:41] you solutions to the problem they create, which is all. It's all made up. I'm just gonna say that right now. It's all made up. They present themselves as the solution to the problem they made up and then ask for money, you know?

Sierra Stokes [01:32:55] Yes.

Thomas Stokes [01:32:55] Cece never bought into that whole cycle, so she saw right through it, and she was like, nope. And I, of course, did. And I was, like, on the fence about it. But anyway, that's that story.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] I have to say, Cece, you're smarter than all of us.

Thomas Stokes [01:33:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:33:07] Probably 99 of the people I've interviewed on Mormon stories, you know, Michael Code, you know, like, Grant Palmer, Michael Quinn. You're smarter than all of them. Really?

Sierra Stokes [01:33:18] Really?

John Dehlin [01:33:19] At age 16. No. Nice.

Sierra Stokes [01:33:21] Seriously?

John Dehlin [01:33:22] I'm sitting here, CC. Cece Stokes is the smartest. Oh, wait, I have to look in the camera. CC Stokes is the smartest person I've ever interviewed on. Sorry, 1495 hours of other people interview you. Cece Stokes is the smartest I've ever interviewed. That's it.

Guest [01:33:42] I'm honored.

Thomas Stokes [01:33:42] There you have it.

John Dehlin [01:33:44] I'm dropping the mic. Drop the mic, cc, Drop the mic. She drops the mic.

Thomas Stokes [01:33:48] Drop it. There you go.

John Dehlin [01:33:49] All right, you win.

Sierra Stokes [01:33:53] So, yeah, I feel like that. I mean, we. We came up to where our family found out. A couple of family members found out about the Tik Tok, and I feel like that's been the most recent development. So now we're up to date, and we're.

Thomas Stokes [01:34:07] Now we're just trying to build our own spirituality, build it from the ground up. She's a lot more spiritual than I am. We're doing, you know, we're trying different things, trying to figure out what resonates with us. For me, it's nature. For her, it's. I don't know. You can talk about that if you want.

Sierra Stokes [01:34:25] Like manifestation.

Thomas Stokes [01:34:26] Manifestation.

Sierra Stokes [01:34:27] The universe has Your back more so than just, like, one single being.

Thomas Stokes [01:34:32] Yeah. Anyway, so that's where we're at right now. Just trying to navigate that, figure out what we believe.

John Dehlin [01:34:36] So are you guys. Do you still identify as Christian? Not sure.

Thomas Stokes [01:34:40] Non Christian for sure. Yeah. Not Christian for me. I. I found this term from one of my friends that also left the church. If you're listening, you know who you are. I feel like I'm a hopeful agnostic.

John Dehlin [01:34:52] Hopeful agnostic.

Thomas Stokes [01:34:53] Yep. I hope there's something out there that'd be nice if there was. There very well could be, but it's not Christian Christianity and it's certainly not Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:35:02] And I think one of the most common comments I get are from Christians that are like, I'm so mad that you ex Mormons give up. Why do you abandon Christ when you lose? Just because the church is a fraud and Joseph Smith was a fraud and the Book of Mormon wasn't true. Why do you have to let that infect Jesus? Jesus still lives. Stick with Jesus. What would you tell my evangelical Christian listeners?

Thomas Stokes [01:35:26] We have some ex evangelical friends, you know who you are, and they've been through the exact same thing that we have. And it's so apparent that there are just as many problems with Christianity in

Sierra Stokes [01:35:39] general as there are. It's across the board. Our parallels are really creepy. Yeah, it's, like, uncanny. Two different religions, but it's, like, the same. It's the same story. Yeah. Like, none of it's original. They're all. They're all playing the same game of shame and manipulate, manipulation, and so.

Thomas Stokes [01:35:58] Yeah, yeah, Bible, Book of Mormon. You want to talk historicity, let's go there.

John Dehlin [01:36:05] I mean, Christians will say, well, at least there really was a Jerusalem. And there really was.

Thomas Stokes [01:36:09] That's a good point.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] There really weren't Jews. Like, they're Zarahemla and Nephi.

Thomas Stokes [01:36:13] Can't argue with that. Right. So that happened, and I think it would be a good time for a song. Um, yeah. This song is called Free, and it's about my wife and my son and how much I love them and how much of a role they played in helping me heal.

Thomas Performs a Song About Freedom

John Dehlin [01:36:32] Any lyrics to listen out for?

Thomas Stokes [01:36:35] No, I don't think so. I mentioned. Yeah, I mentioned the one to bring us hell during the night. That's referring to Abel trying to get him to sleep and waking us up.

Sierra Stokes [01:36:48] Makes a lot of references to those, apparently.

Thomas Stokes [01:36:51] Anyway, am I good to go?

John Dehlin [01:36:52] Y.

Thomas Stokes [01:36:52] Okay, so this. This song's called Free. Let me just adjust this real quick.

Sierra Stokes [01:37:02] Okay.

Guest [01:37:26] I'm inside of It I never slept the way I do with you. And I'll be kind to him. You can't imagine half the things I dare to sacrifice for something brand new. You're my brand new

Sierra Stokes [01:37:52] O.

Guest [01:38:05] The heat that I'm absorbing from your body Is a pleasant sight as we listen for the one to bring us hell during the night during the night so come one minute during the night oh, inside of it I can't believe the way that I used to Used to and I'm behind a bit so help me grow into the one I love before my days are numbered one too few Let go of your truth. After all this time fretting all the things I'll never be like who are you and what am I? Do we amount to to anything? Give me freedom Give me focus that can take away my soul Give me anything but here I've memorized these lines before. All inside of it I couldn't think of anyone but you and I can't hide from it the planet speaks to me and prophecies there's no one else on earth Earth I'd rather choose And I'll be with you.

John Dehlin [01:40:48] Surround

Guest [01:40:51] me until I'm free from this

John Dehlin [01:40:58] Surround

Guest [01:41:02] me until I'm free from them Surround me until I'm free from this so found me Till I'm free from this Surrounding me Until I'm free from.

Thomas Stokes [01:41:43] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:41:49] Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. That's so beautiful. It's so nice to have the music.

Thomas Stokes [01:41:54] Oh, yeah. It's fun to play.

John Dehlin [01:41:55] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:41:56] Oh, yeah. Very fun to play. Anyway, where to from here?

John Dehlin [01:42:02] What are you thinking? Cece?

Sierra Stokes [01:42:04] I. I just really liked that song. I was still lingering on it.

John Dehlin [01:42:08] What do you love about it?

Sierra Stokes [01:42:10] Is it conceited if I say it's about me? I just. I mean, I told Thomas I wanted him to write a song for me and then for him to just also include Abel in it. I really loved that.

Thomas Stokes [01:42:23] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [01:42:23] And he's only been playing that one more recently, so I'm just still obsessed with it. Like, when you hear a new favorite song for the first time, you have to overplay it for a while. Right. Thanks.

Thomas Stokes [01:42:33] Thanks, babe. Appreciate that. Yeah. So fatherhood was fantastic. As soon as he was born, I had a sense of, you know, purpose, resolve to be myself. We told my family we weren't doing the baby blessing, and that's.

Sierra Stokes [01:42:51] I think that really woke them up.

Thomas Stokes [01:42:52] That's when I told them about my faith crisis, because I was like, we're not doing a baby blessing. This is who I am. This is what I Believe. And it was hard for them, very much so.

John Dehlin [01:43:02] Let me just jump in there really quick. So this is, I think that, you know, I have a whole, this has become a full time job for me, just supporting Mormons in faith crisis and leaving the church. And you know, there are lots of things that are hard. Spirituality, raising kids, marital relationships, lots of stuff. By far the hardest thing people deal with is what, you know, whether or not to come out to their parents and if they do, how that's the biggest thing of all the things, that's the biggest thing. And there's a lot to be said for that. But so many people like would rather stay silent and never come out to their parents and literally just wait till their parents die and in some cases hide or live a double life or live a lie because they're so terrified to come out to their parents. Now can you guys relate to that? Does that sound.

Thomas Stokes [01:44:04] That was my plan, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:05] So talk about, talk about. For someone who's never been Mormon or for someone who wants to have a cathartic moment of like connecting with you, why in the world, like if I can't imagine a Lutheran or Presbyterian, like saying, oh, I'm not going to go to church anymore and having it be like the most traumatic thing in their lives to have to tell their parents that. I can see their parents going, who cares? You know, that's no big deal. But in Mormonism, in Mormonism, that was my Midwestern, that was really good.

Guest [01:44:32] Loved it.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] But for, but for you guys, it's a huge deal, or at least for you. So can you talk our non Mormon listeners and our, those who want to feel some catharsis, can you talk them through that?

Thomas Stokes [01:44:45] Yeah. The whole point of the church is so families can be together forever. So that when you get sealed in the temple, it's expected that as long as you guys are faithful to your covenants and faithful to the gospel and the church, you will all end up in the highest kingdom of heaven together for all eternity. And when one person strays from that, you are breaking up your, your family. The rest of them will be together, but not you. And for, you know, a tight knit family like I have, that was extremely difficult for me to break the news that we weren't going to be together in heaven. Even though I like, I'm not sure on an afterlife right now, but I believe that if there is one, we're going to be together no matter what. But they, they don't believe that and I think they're holding out on, on you Know some mercy that God might have for me. But in general, it's absolutely devastating for parents and for siblings to hear that. That you won't be together with your brother, who. I have a special relationship with all my siblings being the middle child, and it was hard for all of them to hear tears. I think everyone I spoke to cried at one point.

Coming Out to Family About Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [01:45:59] Let me ask you, so for those who are on the edge about whether or not to come out or to disclose, you know, there. There's a lot to consider there, and there are different ways to do it.

Thomas Stokes [01:46:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:14] What was it that made you decide? What pushed you over the edge to actually disclose to them you had lost your faith? Because many people would just, like, lie, hide it, go ahead and bless the baby, even go to church on Sunday, lie for the temple recommends, you know, live whatever life they want to live. Have a beer, hide the coffee. You know, this sounds crazy to non Mormons, but hide the coffee maker.

Thomas Stokes [01:46:36] I hid wine once when my parents came over. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:39] Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of people just take that route of hiding or lying. And there's no judgment here. Like, everybody's got to figure this out for themselves, whether to do it, when to do it. And in fact, Margi and I have an episode on this tomorrow.

Thomas Stokes [01:46:54] Oh, nice.

John Dehlin [01:46:54] Talking about the specific issue. But having said all that, what pushed you over the edge to decide not to hide, not to lie, not to live a double life and to face that moment of, you know, of disappointing, making your parents disappointed in themselves and in making them disappointed in you.

Thomas Stokes [01:47:13] I had already hid things for about a year, right? Yeah, it was about a year. And I hated it. Cece could tell how it was tearing me apart. And when the baby blessing was coming up, I'm like, I'm not doing this again. Like, I did the temple thing once, and that was. I hated it. And I'm not going to do this again, especially where I have to get up in front of hundreds of people and bless my baby, that he'll stay faithful in the church. There's no way I'm doing what. Why?

John Dehlin [01:47:44] You said there's no way I'm doing it. But why?

Thomas Stokes [01:47:45] Because I was tired of not living true to myself.

John Dehlin [01:47:49] What does that do to you? Can you describe it?

Thomas Stokes [01:47:51] It creates such a split and a tear in your reality and in your emotions and in every part of your life. I was depressed and. And anxiety, like, every day. I had this terrible feeling in my chest every single day of my life. CC knows it was literally constant. It would stop when I went to bed. And when I woke up in the morning, I'd have a few minutes before it started again, and it was awful. I hated it. And I was done with it. I wanted it to be over. So that's when I decided to not do the baby blessing. And then I actually told my oldest brother first, the one that's married to her sister. And he.

John Dehlin [01:48:32] How'd you tell him? Because there's different ways to tell.

Thomas Stokes [01:48:33] Yeah. We were just packing up. I was helping him move. And then my dad mentioned the baby blessing to both of us. Since he had a kid.

Sierra Stokes [01:48:40] Yep. They've got a baby that's about super close. Younger than Abel.

Thomas Stokes [01:48:44] And so that we're thinking about doing, like, oh, joint blessing. Same thing.

Sierra Stokes [01:48:47] Backed into a corner.

Guest [01:48:48] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:48:48] And so are you gonna do it

Sierra Stokes [01:48:49] at the same time?

Thomas Stokes [01:48:49] Are you gonna do it at the same time or what's going on? And I was like, huh? Yeah, we'll figure it out. And then my brother saw it on my face. He was like, something's up. And so my dad left. Me and my brother were in the car together, and I was like, hey, I got something to tell you. I don't believe in the church how I used to. And he goes, I know, man. He's like, I know. And I was like, you do? And he goes, yeah. And it's not going to affect how I feel about you. And I feel like crying now. It was so good to hear that from him. And he's my best friend, and

Sierra Stokes [01:49:21] it

Thomas Stokes [01:49:21] was just, like, amazing to hear that. And so I was on a high. I was super pumped about it. Twenty minutes later, we both went so

Sierra Stokes [01:49:27] much better than you thought it was.

John Dehlin [01:49:29] And we're say, kudos to that, brother.

Thomas Stokes [01:49:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:49:31] Nice job. Thumbs up.

Thomas Stokes [01:49:32] Love you, dude.

John Dehlin [01:49:32] That's the right answer. A plus.

Thomas Stokes [01:49:34] Yeah, he did cry a little bit. He was like, of course. I'm a little worried, you know, about beliefs and are we going to be together in heaven. He cried a little bit about that, but I was like, I get that. I'm not going to criticize him for that. That was totally understandable. Anyway, but it was perfect. I felt so good. And then my dad called me over when we got to their place, and he was like, hey, come here. And I was just on a high. And I was like, I'm gonna tell my dad, too. And it didn't go quite as well.

John Dehlin [01:50:01] But how'd you tell him?

Thomas Stokes [01:50:02] I was like. He was like, hey, man. Or bud. Hey, bud. I'm gonna like. I realized that I might have made you uncomfortable talking about the baby blessing? We can wait. We can have someone else do it. The important thing is that he gets blessed. And I was like, dad, I'm not going to bless him, and we're not

Sierra Stokes [01:50:18] going to have him blessed, and we're

Thomas Stokes [01:50:20] not going to have him blessed by anyone else. I've had a change in belief. I don't believe the way I used to. And he was. He did his surprise, bewildered face, but he took a moment to compose himself, and he was like, when did this begin? And I was like, my mission gave him a brief synopsis. And over the next month or so, he tried to help me resolve my doubts and bring you back to the fold. Bring me back to the fold. But I think the more I discussed my doubts with him, the less he talked. He spoke to me and. And I told him to read the gospel topic essay on polygamy. And. And he was actually like, I, He. He had a very nuanced view of it, which surprised me. And he was like, I think they did it wrong. Joseph Smith shouldn't have done it like that. And this, that, that. But the important thing is that, you know, the church is still true. But. So he surprised me with his very. A very nuanced view of things, but sorry, I jumped ahead. Going back, he was like, I love you no matter what. I want to help you work through this was basically his response, which was, fine, I understand, but did he give

John Dehlin [01:51:20] you fair Mormon kind of stuff?

Thomas Stokes [01:51:22] Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:51:23] Was that helpful? Was the fair Mormon stuff?

Thomas Stokes [01:51:25] No, I had already seen all fair Mormon. I had already been through that whole process, so everything he told me didn't really resonate with me. But he tried, and I understand why he tried, and I don't hold anything against him for trying to. But I was definitely able to make it clear to him what I believed. And he hasn't brought it up in a long time. Over a year now. So I told my dad, feeling good.

John Dehlin [01:51:49] Has it changed how he's treated you?

Thomas Stokes [01:51:51] Our relationship has gotten so much better. Better. Better? Yep.

John Dehlin [01:51:55] Than before.

Thomas Stokes [01:51:56] Than before.

Sierra Stokes [01:51:57] It's interesting. It really is.

Thomas Stokes [01:51:58] Our relationship was a little rocky, but it's definitely gotten a lot better. He used to kind of try to tell me what to do a lot, and now he just lets me live my life. And I think that's because you.

Sierra Stokes [01:52:15] You just, like, you broke out of the mold so much more than any of them could ever expect. And so I think when you did that, and the more you stuck to your guns about, you know, being true to Yourself. I think that's really helped him back off as far as trying to preach to me and just letting you, like, even outside of the church. It's just kind of his personality to be. Not, like, your parents have never micromanaged you kids, but I wouldn't say so. But just to, like, really grant you freedom, like, more than you've had in the past and to not impose their opinions or, you know, they've just. I think they've really finally started to respect boundaries. And that's why your relationship has gotten better, is because before people pleaser, Thomas wouldn't have set any boundaries to be respected.

Thomas Stokes [01:53:10] I would just nod my head and say, yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Sierra Stokes [01:53:13] Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [01:53:14] So, yeah, that relationship has really developed, and I'm happy about that. Then I was like, all right, that was better than I thought. Let's tell my mom. And at this point, I started going to therapy, like, right in between telling my mom and my dad.

John Dehlin [01:53:28] You waited how much time between my mom and dad?

Thomas Stokes [01:53:32] Yeah, I want to say a month, three weeks. Yeah. But I.

Guest [01:53:37] He.

Thomas Stokes [01:53:38] He told her a little bit, but just that I was having problems, that's all. Which I. I'm glad he did say it like that, because I wanted to tell her myself. My mom was super sweet, and she immediately brought mental health into it, since I said I was starting to see a therapist, and she was like, how's your mental health? She opened up to me about her mental health. She. She had gone through depression as well throughout my whole childhood, and I had no idea. And so it. Like, being able to open up to my family was amazing because they all brought something different to the table. And they were all pretty.

Sierra Stokes [01:54:10] They responded.

Thomas Stokes [01:54:11] They responded very well.

Sierra Stokes [01:54:12] As we could have hoped.

Thomas Stokes [01:54:13] As well as we could have hoped. And then I told my little sister, and she's like, my best bud, too. And so she. She was like, I love you no matter what. She told us things about her own faith, Jo as well. And she's still super in, though. And then I told my big sister over the phone because she lives in Arkansas, and she was super nice, too.

John Dehlin [01:54:33] She.

Thomas Stokes [01:54:33] She definitely shared, like, a lot of spiritual experiences that she's had, but she. She was really nice and supportive, and so I was just on a high, and I was going to therapy. I was feeling so much better about myself and about life in general, and my therapist was so, so good. Um, and then I had my. My buddy Zach that commented. And the Denny's guy, he was going through all that with me, too. We had a couple Other friends, too, that. That were going through it. So I just. I just felt really supported during that community.

John Dehlin [01:55:05] And a good therapist.

Thomas Stokes [01:55:05] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:55:06] You want to give a shout out to your therapist, or would you rather keep that private?

Thomas Stokes [01:55:09] I'm fine. As long as there's. Like, he said I could say his name, so. Cody Merrill. Amazing.

John Dehlin [01:55:14] Utah County.

Thomas Stokes [01:55:15] Utah County. If you're going through a faith crisis,

John Dehlin [01:55:17] add that to the show notes.

Thomas Stokes [01:55:18] Book him.

Sierra Stokes [01:55:19] He.

Thomas Stokes [01:55:19] He is amazing.

Sierra Stokes [01:55:20] He specializes in faith crises. Right?

Thomas Stokes [01:55:22] Yeah.

Guest [01:55:22] He said.

Thomas Stokes [01:55:22] I think he said he would watch this. So if you're listening, dude, like, you're the best. Like, you made such a big difference. Cody Merrill. I think it's spelled M E R R E L, not the other way around. It's. It's a little different than the other Merrill. Anyway, that leads me to another song, the Easy Way out song I wrote the first day I went to therapy. And it's about my inner dialogue about leaving the church and finally coming to terms with it and what I thought my family was going to say, which turned out to be a little different than what they actually said. I imagined the worst, and they exceeded my expectations. So I. Should I play that one again?

John Dehlin [01:56:03] Yeah. Like, this is. Y' all are gonna love this song. Let me just say that, like, there are all sorts. You know, there are these common stereotypes that. That orthodox Mormons have for Mormons who lose their faith and leave the church and things like, they wanted to sin, they never believed in the first place, you know? You know, and. And there's always, like, you know, it was too hard for them, and they wanted to take the easy way out. And so I don't know if you had that in mind.

Sierra Stokes [01:56:34] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:35] When you pick the title.

Sierra Stokes [01:56:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:37] But do you want to talk a little bit about why you would choose that title for a song about leaving the church, knowing that that's kind of the stereotype, and if there are lyrics or whatever, that.

Thomas Stokes [01:56:48] Yeah, for sure. I mean, honestly, I think the lyric. I think the lyrics speak for themselves. And you're gonna know. You're gonna know, but the whole thing is just, like, taking that stereotype and running with it. Like, you think I'm gonna take the easy way out? Okay, well, this is what the easy way out is like. And why don't you take a. You know, Step into my shoes. Step into my shoes and.

John Dehlin [01:57:10] Yeah, all right.

Thomas Stokes [01:57:11] See what it's like here.

John Dehlin [01:57:11] It is. Easy Way Out.

Thomas Stokes [01:57:13] Yep. This is the title song on my ep, so go listen to the full version.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [01:57:22] It always ends up tied up in my mind squeezes all the love until it dies A never ending circle of design that pulls me back for questioning my life well, serves you right for asking why you're here. You're fine. You're here, you're fine. I hear you're fine.

Video Clip 1 [01:57:52] Shut up.

Video Clip 1 [01:57:52] You're fine. I never get a second point of view why bother when the one you have is true? How dare you ever leave this special place it ebbs and flows on what it wants to say and what they say is I'm okay that I'm not broken but I am I think I am oh God, I am. I guess I'll take I'll take the easy way out I'll tear my roots I'll dig my grave and spit it out Leave it alone, leave it alone if you can't stay but you can change I'm changing every goddamn day. So worry what the other ones will think Inside the well it never looks that deep Gon grab your Spain and dig that rabbit hole but once you start you'll never come back home well, serves you right for asking why you're here. You're fine. You're here, you're fine. I hear you're fine.

Video Clip 1 [01:59:37] Shut up.

Video Clip 1 [01:59:38] You're fine. I guess I'll take I'll take the easy way out I'll tear my roots I'll dig my grave and spit it out Leave it alone, Leave it alone if you can't stay but you can change I'm changing every goddamn day. I never thought of it as an abuse the happiness can always trump the truth well, ignorance is bliss they always say the truths of now are lies from yesterday and what they say is we're okay that we're not broken by

Video Clip 1 [02:00:38] we, we are it's never been more

Video Clip 1 [02:00:43] clear than we are. I guess I'll take, I'll take the easy way out I'll tear my roots I'll dig my grave and spit it out Leave it alone, leave it alone if you can't stay but you can change I'm changing every God damn day I'm changing every single day I'm changing every single day I'm changing every God damn day.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:05] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:02:08] Beautiful. That's a favorite. I'm gonna try and get you to sing that at Thrive.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:12] Oh, I'll totally sing that at Thrive. No, no problem.

John Dehlin [02:02:15] November 14th, Salt Palace. You'll get to hear Thomas Stokes as Big Crick. Big Crick seeing easy way out. That's a good one. Thank you. That was beautiful.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:28] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:02:29] Somebody wrote Chills in the Comments?

Thomas Stokes [02:02:30] Oh, man. Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:02:33] All right, so you took the easy way out.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:35] I took these way out. No big deal. You know, whatever.

John Dehlin [02:02:37] You left the church and now you can sin. Now you can drink beer.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:40] Yeah. That's all I ever wanted. I love.

Sierra Stokes [02:02:42] That was the only reason.

John Dehlin [02:02:43] Smoke weed.

Guest [02:02:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:44] You can swing if you want. You can do everything you want to do. Basically.

Guest [02:02:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:49] That's why you did it.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:50] Oh, yeah. On a side note, beer is such a wonderful wide world. I know you don't. You don't drink, but not yet. It's.

Sierra Stokes [02:02:59] It's.

Thomas Stokes [02:02:59] You don't have to, like. It's whatever. But it's been cool. It's a way to bond, you know, It's a way to bond with me and my buddy. We. We've bonded over that. It's cool. But. Yeah, let's see. There's one more song.

John Dehlin [02:03:13] Um, so how. So that was. How long ago did you come out to everybody?

Thomas Stokes [02:03:17] That was April of 20.

John Dehlin [02:03:21] 20.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:21] 2020.

John Dehlin [02:03:22] Okay. So a year.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:24] So a year. Year ago.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:26] Yep. Year ago.

Sierra Stokes [02:03:27] Yep. It's been a while.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:28] Year and a half. Yeah. We've been navigating that with family ever since.

John Dehlin [02:03:31] Right at the beginning of COVID Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:34] Yeah. A little bit into Covid is when

Sierra Stokes [02:03:36] I came out, which almost. It was kind of perfect timing, because a couple months before he officially came out is when Covid, you know, came to the States. And everybody was like, oh, we should probably start being careful. And so everybody was doing church at home.

Thomas Stokes [02:03:53] Convenient.

Sierra Stokes [02:03:54] Which kind of saved us because by this time, we were like, you know, we don't need to be going to church. And so we didn't have to approach that quite yet, which was kind of nice. Just while we got our bearings. And then come April, when we just, you know, Clean break. Yeah, it was. I don't know, it was just nice.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:16] Yeah, it was just a little break before to prepare, telling the family.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:20] Which, honestly, it wasn't like it was the calm before the storm or anything, because his family handled it really well. But amazing, even for as well as it's gone, there have still been hiccups, little things that, you know, you have to brace yourself for. So.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:36] Yeah, it worked out. Yeah. I had a conversation. Sorry.

Sierra Stokes [02:04:40] You're good.

Thomas Stokes [02:04:40] I had a conversation with my mom the other day, and she was like. She kind of wanted to know a little bit more in depth about what was really going on with my faith crisis. And it was hard. It was hard for her to hear it because she's such a sweetheart and. And she just wanted me to be happy. But she said that she wasn't emotionally prepared to hear all the details and like, I respect that. But also it's kind of sad that she's not, but I understand why. It's not her fault. It's. It's the way the church conditions. Conditions you and the church has been a really big help for her personally in her life. And. And who am I to, you know, question that? It's just. It's hard when they don't see eye to eye.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:22] It's getting them to come around to your point of view.

Thomas Stokes [02:05:25] Yeah. And then, you know, they've. Since then they found. Some of them have found out about my. My tick tock and didn't agree with that.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:35] I feel like that's honestly been the hardest hit the TikTok.

Thomas Stokes [02:05:38] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:05:38] It's just that aside from you being out of the church, you actually have enough hurt feelings to like, you know, poke a little fun. Like, why would you want to poke fun? You should just leave and leave it alone. But it's like, you know, it's kind of therapeutic for people. So.

Rewriting Hymns and Processing the Transition

John Dehlin [02:05:55] So let's see if I remember, you basically took. For a while, you were taking primary songs, changing. Or hymns.

Thomas Stokes [02:06:04] Or hymns.

Guest [02:06:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:04] And changing the lyrics to kind of. Kind of satire.

Thomas Stokes [02:06:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:09] Where you would talk about hard church stuff or make. I don't know if making fun is the right word, but like. Yeah, but being critical or. How would you describe those songs and knowing that, you know, when we started this episode, it's those primary songs and those hymns that were some of your early, most tender loving moments. And that's been true for me as well. Is there a psychological or kind of a mental health reason or justification for some would say desecrating those sacred songs? Is there actually. Is it just. You're just mad? Is it just. It's actually therapeutic. You know, talk about your strategy or your thinking or your justification or reasoning for that.

Thomas Stokes [02:06:54] I can honestly say I have been mad at the church, but all of my exmo hymns, as I call them, have come out of healing, mostly healing myself. That's how it started. Because, you know, I have. I was so petrified of doing anything blasphemous. You know, I thought that if I didn't pray before a road trip or if I didn't wear my garments on a road trip, I would get in a car accident. If I desecrated something sacred, it would come back and, you know, God would smite me type deal. And so finally just doing it and letting go of that Fear and realizing that nothing bad was going to happen was huge for me. And then all these people on TikTok,

Sierra Stokes [02:07:35] I was like, just blew up.

Thomas Stokes [02:07:36] They blew up my comments, and I started getting a ton of followers and they're like, oh, my gosh, like, thank you. I know needed this. This is so healing. And I'm like, I was just doing it for me and, like, kind of like just a way to cope and. And turns out a lot of people. It resonates with them. And so I did a ton of them. I did, like, I think, like, close to 50. And then I've.

John Dehlin [02:07:58] What are some examples?

Thomas Stokes [02:07:59] Like, I love to see. Oh, this one's good. This is my biggest one was, I

Guest [02:08:03] love to see the temple. I'm going there someday.

Thomas Stokes [02:08:08] I. I wonder what goes on there. My parents will not say it's a

Guest [02:08:13] sacred, not a secret place. They told me to stop asking.

Thomas Stokes [02:08:17] I'm preparing now for who knows what.

Guest [02:08:20] What's the worst that can happen?

Thomas Stokes [02:08:24] I gotta sing the second verse too, because it's golden. I go, what is it? I just went through the temple. Oh, shit. I'm in a cold. What's with the secret handshakes and my new baker robe?

Guest [02:08:38] This isn't what I thought it'd be. It's more than just a bit odd.

Thomas Stokes [02:08:43] I'm a little scared to go again.

Guest [02:08:46] Plus, my new name is Nimrod, so.

Thomas Stokes [02:08:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:50] Was your name Nimrod?

Thomas Stokes [02:08:51] No, no, I just heard that that was a name, and I was like, that's the worst name I've ever heard.

John Dehlin [02:08:56] Okay, so just to be. Just to be, like. To kind of process that. It's funny, it's hilarious, it's cute, it's well written. And for Mormons, those songs are sacred. And the temple ceremony is sacred. I'm thinking, like, oh, man. All the way up to now. But then your mom watches that. She's not happy. You're desecrating a sacred hymn. You're talking about the most sensitive thing, which is temple, marriage and the temple. And you're even talking about you're kind of dropping a temple name even though it's not yours. Like, that's like, somebody's gonna say that's offensive. Why go that route?

Thomas Stokes [02:09:36] Yeah, I totally get that. And the main thing, we did have that. We did. Oh, yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:09:40] Our family members found it.

Thomas Stokes [02:09:41] Yeah. And I've also had my fair share of negative comments, too. But at the end of the day, it's not for believing Mormons. It's not to slander the church in front of Believing Mormons and in front of non Mormons. It's for ex Mormons that have gone through traumatic events in the church of any form. And it's for them to realize that it's okay to joke a little bit or it's okay to feel things. It's okay to replace what you once held sacred with something that is. Is more healing or funny. Because some of them are funny. Some of them are just true. Some of them are like kind of on the more tender side. Some of them are a little blasphemous. It's, you know, everywhere in between. So I realized that my family would not be happy. And what I'd say to them is, it's just not. It's not for you. You know, it's for people that need it and you definitely don't need it. And so no offense to them, I get why they would be offended, but it's never. It's not meant to offend them.

John Dehlin [02:10:39] What if somebody says you're fulfilling the stereotype of the angry ex Mormon by making sacrilege out of primary hymns?

Thomas Stokes [02:10:45] I don't think I sound that angry in my videos and I don't think I sound that angry on this podcast either.

John Dehlin [02:10:52] Well, it always presumes that anger is bad. And actually anger is a healthy emotion. And their reasoning.

Thomas Stokes [02:10:56] That's true.

John Dehlin [02:10:56] Yeah, there's something good about that.

Thomas Stokes [02:10:58] I've. I've been. Yeah, I've been angry too. And it's a healthy way to process things. Yeah, there's a lot of good. There's some new Exmo hymn parody. People stepping up too, like Quirky Turkey. She's doing it now. She does a good job. But I've kind of run out of hymns. I'm sure there are more. Yeah, there are some more I could put. Probably do, but I. I feel like I did all the good ones.

John Dehlin [02:11:27] Okay, so are there other parts of your story you want to share or are you feeling like you're kind of getting close to the end in the final song? Because I do have a. Maybe a question or two, but I want to. I don't want to disrupt the stream of the story.

Thomas Stokes [02:11:40] I think we're getting close. I wanted to bring up one more thing with the family. They've. And this is for everyone that is going through this and navigating a faith crisis with their family. There are always going to be ups and downs.

Guest [02:11:55] My.

Thomas Stokes [02:11:56] My family, like we said, has been extremely supportive for the most part. But then, like, for example, just this past, when I released my ep, there Was they. They all sent some. There's not all of them. Some of them sent texts saying they were happy that I released my music. But, like, my mom called and she didn't want to listen to the song I just played because I say God damn in it. And I told her, like, it might offend you. And so she said she would just skip it until she was ready to listen. None of them have bought the ep, which is fine, but like, they're just there, there's. There's going to be ups and downs and you just got to be patient with them. And they. I expect them to be patient with me as well. So just remember that when. Don't expect too much because they're part of a system that has told them to suppress their emotions and to cut out anything that doesn't make them feel the spirit. So you gotta be merciful.

John Dehlin [02:12:55] I mean, basically the worst case scenario is getting disowned, cut off.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:04] Shamed.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:05] Which I know people that that's happened to.

John Dehlin [02:13:07] What's that?

Thomas Stokes [02:13:07] I know people that that's happened to. It's horrible.

John Dehlin [02:13:09] But that hasn't happened to you.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:11] I'm lucky.

John Dehlin [02:13:12] Yeah. So shout out and congrats to all, all of Thomas's family.

Thomas Stokes [02:13:17] Thanks, guys. I love you.

Mental Health, Marriage, and Life After the Church

John Dehlin [02:13:19] What about the cc? What about the fear that you would be blamed? Because that's usually what happens is if there's an in law, especially if the in law, you know, was the first to lose their faith or in your case, you were suspect to begin with because you had a healthy. You had a healthy teenage in early adulthood. So that's. That's a problem. Then you're going to be potentially at least worry that. That you're going to be blamed, if not sort of get the vibes that people are kind of blaming you. How is there anything you want to say about that? I mean, these are still your in laws, so it's probably hard to. Might be hard to talk about that.

Sierra Stokes [02:13:59] Yeah. No. Funnily enough, Thomas worried about that a lot more than I did. He was very. He just wanted to make sure that they understood that it wasn't me dragging him away, it's that he was already being pulled in that direction. And then I just happened to come along and. And help him work through that. And, you know, it didn't have the outcome that they wanted, but it wasn't ultimately my doing that he is where he is today. I feel like we've had a lot of heated conversations in the past and sometimes during those conversations I would tell him I was like, hey, you know, I'll take the blame. You know, if I was kind of being a hothead in the moment, I was like, let them blame me. You know, who cares as long as you are standing up to them? And of course, Thomas was like, no, we're not going to take that route. Like, they need to always know that it wasn't, it wasn't you to begin with.

Thomas Stokes [02:14:58] I was very adamant about that.

Sierra Stokes [02:15:00] But yeah, he was adamant about it and I was more so just like you need to. I was mostly worried about him getting through his people, pleasing and really standing up to himself and speaking his truth. And I was like, you know, if I get thrown to the wolves by doing that, I, I will take that. And in time I think it would heal itself. But we just didn't have that issue to start with. My in laws are really great. Like, we've talked about them having some concerns through our dating, but as soon as we were married again, I feel like they. They realized that we were together. So it didn't matter how, how it happened that he left the church because we were married and, you know, that's official and what were they going to do about it?

Thomas Stokes [02:15:48] So I talked to my mom and reiterated just the other week that CC was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I always think about what would have happened if she wasn't there. I probably would have found an active Mormon girl, been, you know, clenching my knuckles, trying to hold it all in, and I'd be living a lie. Maybe it would have led to divorce, maybe it would have worked out and she would have left with me. But that's. That's a scary thing. And I'm really glad that cece was there to help me.

John Dehlin [02:16:23] There's another scenario there which a lot of people are in, and this is going to be emotional for some people, but just packing it down, packing down the distress and the anxiety and the sadness and the depression from living an inauthentic life.

Thomas Stokes [02:16:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:39] Faking it in fear of your spouse leaving you or not loving you anymore or disappointing everyone. And that can turn. That can make someone very ill and it can even lead to, you know, suicidal ideation, just to be totally honest. Because when you, when you live a lie for. For too long and when you just sit with those internalized feelings of depression and, and anxiety and inauthenticity, you. You multiply that by months and years and it can. It can wreak havoc on your health. Your. Not just your emotional and psychological health, but also in your physical Health. And in some cases, it can actually be deadly.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] And I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but I've been through this business for 20 years, and I see it all the time.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:34] Absolutely. It's very true.

John Dehlin [02:17:37] So I think you made the healthiest choice.

Sierra Stokes [02:17:40] I think.

Thomas Stokes [02:17:40] I think I could not be happier.

John Dehlin [02:17:44] So you talked about that. That weight, that pressure, stress, that almost constant, you know, sort of chronic panic attack that was just always there. How's it been since come, you know, since disclosing to everybody?

Thomas Stokes [02:18:02] It's gone? Well, it didn't go away fully until a couple months into therapy. And he helped me work. My therapist helped me work through it and telling everyone, being more open and authentic, realizing a few truths about myself and about why I was feeling the way I was feeling. It just went away. And I still. Sometimes depression can creep back in, but it's really fleeting now. Usually it's just like if I'm having a blah day, but that's the worst it gets. And it used to be debilitating, but, like, I'm the happiest I've ever been now. And the difference she can probably testify to this is night and day.

John Dehlin [02:18:41] It's crazy talk about that. Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:18:44] I mean, if I have anything to add. It's just that Thomas was also worried off and on throughout his journey that he's so funny. He would get dark circles under his eyes if Abel had, like, a bad night sleeping or something. And then if we went to his family's house for Sunday dinner or something, he would be like, do you think that my family's gonna think that my countenance is gone and that the light has left my eyes? And I'm like, you're sleep deprived. Like, we're sleep training our son, you know, and so. But it is funny that apart from him worrying about people thinking that his sleep circles is, you know, Satan's hold on him, I do feel like he does almost come across lighter now that he. He doesn't have that depression and that anxiety as constantly.

Thomas Stokes [02:19:40] So got nothing to do with my countenance and everything to do with my behavior. And I think you see it.

Sierra Stokes [02:19:47] I feel just like prioritizing. Prioritizing your mental health after having something like that happen to you? Absolutely. I do think you can see it physically. So it's been. It's been nice to see.

Guest [02:19:59] It's.

Sierra Stokes [02:19:59] It's hard to start your marriage in a hard spot like that. And I don't think we'd go about it any other way. And it's not like, at any point we were like, did we make a mistake in getting married so soon? But, yeah, it was just kind of a hard foot to step off on. And it's. It's been nice to see that, you know, we're coming up on three years, and it's like, okay, we both feel. We feel good. Yeah, we got it now.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:22] We met each other or we started dating while each of us were at our worst.

Sierra Stokes [02:20:27] Yeah, it was really interesting that we, like, met each other and we've just grown together.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:33] Yeah, we've just grown together.

John Dehlin [02:20:34] I feel like I love it.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:37] Well, it's. I mean, you're both saying that you're both happier and healthier, both individually and in your marriage. Is that right?

Sierra Stokes [02:20:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:47] It's been good for your marriage. It's been good for your individual mental and physical health.

Thomas Stokes [02:20:52] True. Yep.

Sierra Stokes [02:20:52] Yes, true.

John Dehlin [02:20:53] Okay. And that matters. That should matter. As far as the countless thing goes, I just have to say, I. You know, I had someone message me the other day and say that they totally lost their faith, but they haven't told anybody yet, and they thought it was weird how nobody's made a comment about their countenance. Right.

Thomas Stokes [02:21:15] Oh, isn't that true?

Sierra Stokes [02:21:16] Like, they'll only make that comment comment after they know something's out, that you've left.

John Dehlin [02:21:21] And you can leave and, like, all of a sudden, no longer be depressed, go off your meds, lose 20 pounds or whatever it is. You could be beaming, you know, like Donny Osmond smile, and they're still gonna say your conscience is falling.

Thomas Stokes [02:21:35] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:36] There's no avoiding it because it's confirmation bias. You see, you ignore what you don't want to see, and you. And you see what you want to see. And so Margi and I, in our last Mormon Stories episode, we just talked about acceptance and how important it is to just accept you can't control people's reactions. When you try, you usually make it worse. So the best thing you can do is just practice acceptance of where you are and who you are and everything. And that's, oddly enough, accepting the pain and suffering or the disappointment of others is often the healthiest way through.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:22:12] And I recommend that recent episode with Margi on you know, telling believing family and friends when you lose your faith. It's. It's really outstanding. Yeah, we've gotten great feedback. It's just a couple episodes ago.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:24] Yeah, I saw that one. I was planning on listening to that one.

John Dehlin [02:22:27] Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:27] Yeah, it's been good. The. Let's see. I think that's about. There's one thing that I wanted to mention that maybe I can get your feedback on, but I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:22:41] It's therapy. Therapy.

Thomas Stokes [02:22:44] This might be a good idea. It might be a bad idea, but I've put together a slideshow that details my whole story because my family, I wish they would ask more about it, but they haven't because they've been a little too scared. But I've put together a whole slideshow detailing my story. And then at the end, after, like, three disclaimer slides, I'm like, here are all the reasons I left the church. And I'm. And I just want people to have it available as a resource if they ever want to look at it. If they don't, that's fine, but I'm hoping one day they'll all read it and come to terms with it and ask me questions. Family, if you're watching this, I mean, you've probably read the slideshow by now if you're watching this, but please give it a watch or. Yeah, give it a watch and a read and. And ask me questions and. And if you're a friend, too. I just want. I want to be open about it.

Sierra Stokes [02:23:32] Yeah.

Guest [02:23:33] So.

John Dehlin [02:23:33] Yeah. So what we'll do is in the show notes, we'll include. You can give us the PowerPoint slideshow. We'll create a PDF out of it, we'll upload it, and anyone who wants to know kind of the reasons they can, they can upload it. Are you saying you wanted to give a narrated version as well, where you actually talk through it, or you just want the visuals?

Thomas Stokes [02:23:52] N. Just the visuals.

Sierra Stokes [02:23:53] Okay.

Thomas Stokes [02:23:54] Yeah, we'll see about that. Yeah. It's not done yet, but I'll try to get it done.

John Dehlin [02:23:57] Finish it up and email it to us.

Thomas Stokes [02:23:59] Sure. All right. Yeah, why not?

John Dehlin [02:24:01] Okay. Is that what you were asking or something?

Thomas Stokes [02:24:03] I was just seeing if it was a good idea to share it with my family and.

John Dehlin [02:24:06] Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, let me tell you my. So we talk about that in. In the. In the thing with Margi, and my general feedback is. And there's. You know, I am no longer. I'm not the. Your replacement prophet. And I don't mean you. I mean you listeners. I don't know what's right. Every situation is different. I'm just one guy, blah, blah, blah. I'll just tell you my. What I generally advise people as my default advice is it's best not to put yourself in the position of being someone else's teacher.

Thomas Stokes [02:24:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:40] For a couple reasons. One is most people don't want to know. Overwhelmingly, the response to those big long letters that people write, exit letters that they write about why they're leaving, is that they're ignored and they're never read.

Thomas Stokes [02:24:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:56] Creates in people often the backfire effect where they feel like you're trying to deconvert them. And oftentimes that backfires, not only because it isn't great for your relationship, but also oftentimes people will cling even tighter to their beliefs when they feel like their beliefs are being challenged. There's a couple good episodes on a podcast called you're not so smart about the backfire effect. It's not a perfect theory, but I think there's something to it and it's worth checking out. You really do strengthen their beliefs sometimes just by presenting them with evidence and not even opinion evidence, like factual evidence, often, whether it's gun control or global warming or abortion. Pick your topic. Politics. Evidence that's actually correct strengthens the opposing point of view, believe it or not.

Thomas Stokes [02:25:42] Crazy.

John Dehlin [02:25:43] And then, and then finally, you don't want them to ever. Like, you don't want to ever be accused of the reason why someone leaves. And so, like, if. Let's just say they read it and they love it and they leave the church, well, guess who gets blamed, right?

Thomas Stokes [02:25:57] Yeah, exactly.

Sierra Stokes [02:25:58] That's the last thing we've really focused on.

John Dehlin [02:26:01] I'm not saying don't do it.

Thomas Stokes [02:26:02] No, no.

John Dehlin [02:26:02] But it's things to think about.

Thomas Stokes [02:26:04] It's certainly, certainly one of the hesitations I have had in sharing with my family.

John Dehlin [02:26:08] So if you just put it out there, they. They're adults. Another argument. Let's just say the opposing argument is they're grown. Grown arse adults. If they click on it, if they download it, that's up to them.

Thomas Stokes [02:26:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:20] And, you know, and, and there are a lot of people that are grateful, like just to. To give the opposing advice of what I just said. How many people are just so grateful that their loved one shared with them their thoughts and their feelings and concerns, helped them see the church for what it truly is, and then they were able to kind of take back their life and live an authentic life? So, you know, I can argue with myself. There's really no one right answer. Ultimately, adults just have to make adult decisions. And so what some people do is just refer people to the Gospel topics essays or here's rough stone rolling or here's no man knows my history or here's the CES letter. You know, I want you to have your own Journey.

Thomas Stokes [02:27:01] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [02:27:02] I never want to mess up with your faith. So there's no right answer. I'm sure I confused you more than I did help you, but those are some of the things that people.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:10] Yeah, we'll talk about, I think, because like you said about not being somebody's teacher or not being the reason that they leave and having those accusations. I think the reason why Thomas finally did come to the conclusion of making a PowerPoint was just in case any of his family reached out to him

Guest [02:27:29] first,

Sierra Stokes [02:27:31] wanting to know more. Because up until this point, we have been very careful to not like, act like we're trying to convert them or deconvert them. And it's been kind of. It's been kind of disappointing how little they have wanted to know. But on the off chance that they did come to him and want to

Thomas Stokes [02:27:50] know more, I would like to have.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:52] Then it would be there laid out, I guess, is. Is that. I don't know. I don't know if that's what you had in mind.

Thomas Stokes [02:27:58] Yeah, no, that's for sure.

Sierra Stokes [02:27:59] We definitely had that. That fear too, that people would be like, okay, you are pulling people away from the church. You need to just, like, chill and let them come to their own conclusions.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:09] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:10] We hope that someday family would actually reach out and come to us first. That would be nice.

John Dehlin [02:28:16] But, yeah, I mean, the. In a high demand religion, the consequences of losing your faith and leaving are just so dire. Or they. The perceived consequences of leaving a high demand religion can be so scary. So dire. Some people in their 50s and 60s and 70s or 80s, do they really want to make a change now with all that sunk cost?

Sierra Stokes [02:28:37] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:38] So, you know, just makes sense why a lot of people just never want to know.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:43] Even even though you're their child or their grandkid or their sibling, some people just. They never want to go there.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:49] Yeah, I get it.

Sierra Stokes [02:28:50] It's all about comfort zone because you definitely have to. You have to break out of it when you're. When you're leaving something that you've been raised in.

Thomas Stokes [02:28:58] Yeah, very true. So, yeah, I think that leads into my last song. All right, we can do it.

John Dehlin [02:29:05] Do it.

Thomas Stokes [02:29:06] This song's called I Don't have to Know. And that's just what I feel right now. I really don't.

Sierra Stokes [02:29:11] This is a really good.

Thomas Stokes [02:29:12] I don't have to know everything. And this is about my plea to God and this. You know that countless times I prayed to find answers. That's out of tune.

John Dehlin [02:29:34] Here you get tuning live on Mormons this is how raw and real this is. Like unplugged. MTV Unplugged.

Guest [02:29:41] Yeah.

Sierra Stokes [02:29:41] All the. Behind me.

John Dehlin [02:29:43] Behind the scenes. You get the tuning. You get the tuning. That's how real. And he's tuning by ear, of course. He doesn't need no stinking. Doesn't need no stinking tuning fork.

Thomas Stokes [02:29:56] Right, exactly.

John Dehlin [02:30:03] How did it get so out of tune?

Sierra Stokes [02:30:04] How you doing, capo?

Thomas Stokes [02:30:05] I had the capo on it. So when I take it off, the intonation is a little off, usually.

Thomas Performs a Final Song

John Dehlin [02:30:10] All right. So the name of the song is

Thomas Stokes [02:30:12] I Don't have To Know by Big Crick. Big Crick, Yep. And you'll notice a few special lines. Just keep your eyes peeled or ears peeled.

Sierra Stokes [02:30:20] Okay.

Guest [02:30:39] I've waited all night. I'm kneeling still. I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you so bad. And I can't believe you. At least not those ties. They cannot speak for you. They cannot speak for you like that. So if you're whatever they say you are, what am I calling to? What am I calling to you for? But I've prayed there could be nothing. But I've seen miracles. I really hope there's something and I'm okay? I hope it shows I don't have to know. You're everything to nothing. And the hardest thing that I let go. So what's this love I've heard all about? Cause I can't see here? No, I can't see you anymore. And I lost my mind meaning? But I'm scared of death. So what's my body worth? And what's my spirit worth up there? And I'll swear I'll follow you until the end. Just give me anything. A simple voice, no question. Questioning what's real. But I've prayed there could be nothing. But I've seen miracles. I really hope there's something and I'm okay? I hope it shows I don't have to know. You're everything to nothing and the hardest thing that I let go. You're everything to nothing nothing. And the hardest thing that I let go. So I'll say your name and you'll prick my heart. So what's with all the special clothes? I'd spill my God. Since l throat, you know. And I heard you watch me be still my soul been sitting quiet for quite some time. They're telling me I have nowhere else to go. I never wanted home to change.

Sierra Stokes [02:33:59] When I asked, I heard.

Guest [02:34:02] I'll be over. Okay? You don't have to stay. I've prayed there could be nothing But I've seen miracles? I really hope there's something I'm okay? I hope it shows I don't have to know? You're everything to nothing? And the hardest thing that I let go? You're everything to nothing and the hardest thing that I let go? I don't miss it, though? I don't miss it, though? You're everything to nothing and the hardest thing that I let go? I don't miss it, though? I don't miss it, though? You're everything to nothing and the hardest thing that I let go? I don't miss it, though? I don't miss it, though? You're everything to nothing and the hardest thing that I let go. Yay. Thank you.

Sierra Stokes [02:35:25] That one, too.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:25] Thanks. Appreciate it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:30] And the. The lyrics you wanted people to notice.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:34] I'll say your name and you'll prick my heart. So what's with all the special clothes? I'd spill my guts and slit a throat to know in reference to the temple ceremony.

John Dehlin [02:35:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Savage.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:48] Yeah,

Sierra Stokes [02:35:51] I suppose Savage would make it pretty.

John Dehlin [02:35:53] Yeah. Right.

Thomas Stokes [02:35:55] So, yeah, that's. Writing all this music has been really therapeutic for me. It's what I do when I'm sad and also when I'm happy. Because I wrote, you know, free. I wrote that one about Abel and Cece, and it just helps me express myself and deal with hard emotions. And I thought that maybe other people would like to hear it too. So I began production on my album, released the first three songs as an EP on Bandcamp that's on sale. All that money is going to go directly towards producing the rest of my album, which I definitely need. If you guys want to support, that would be very much appreciated. So we can get this album to you guys as quick as possible. And the album will be free, of course. And then, yeah, I want to do. I want to do events and live shows and build. Help build a community around. Around this. People like Mindy Gledhill and Tyler Glenn and Guy from Imagine Dragons. Why did I forget Dan.

Reflections and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [02:36:57] Dan Reynolds.

Thomas Stokes [02:36:58] Dan Reynolds.

John Dehlin [02:36:59] Wayne Sermon.

Guest [02:36:59] You know, they're.

Thomas Stokes [02:37:00] They're all giants and they've come before me, but I'm just a regular dude. But I have these songs that I wanted to share as well. So, yeah, hope you guys have enjoyed them and hope you guys enjoy the album, too.

John Dehlin [02:37:12] Yeah. Well, tell us one more time how. How to find your stuff.

Thomas Stokes [02:37:17] So right now you can find me on Instagram and tik tok big.crick. music. I'm on band camp. Just go to bandcamp.com or download the amp the app and search for Big Crick and I'll come up. You can buy my EP there. I'm also on Spotify and Apple Music. My first song, Dirty, is on there. And I believe those are all the platforms I'm on right now. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:37:48] All right.

Thomas Stokes [02:37:48] Any of that Big Crick music. Yeah. Also I need to do one more Shameless plug. My wife is an amazing esthetician.

Sierra Stokes [02:37:58] This is totally unrelated.

John Dehlin [02:38:00] Skin to glow Like Cece, the smartest person ever.

Thomas Stokes [02:38:03] Look at that skin.

Guest [02:38:04] Come on. She.

Thomas Stokes [02:38:05] We own our own spa and so if you want.

John Dehlin [02:38:08] What?

Thomas Stokes [02:38:08] Yeah, if you want a facial, come book with us and we'd love to have you. So that is also. We'll throw her social media on the link too. It's cc. What is it? CC Rider with a Y skin on Instagram. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:25] Yeah. We love Shameless plugs on more machine.

Thomas Stokes [02:38:27] Oh, yeah. I'm all about Shameless plugs.

Sierra Stokes [02:38:29] We've actually had people from Thomas's TikTok book facials, which is really fun because then we actually get to meet in person and yeah, it's cool. Correspond. So I guess, yeah, throw that plug in there. We'd love to meet you guys.

Thomas Stokes [02:38:43] Yep. Orem.

Sierra Stokes [02:38:44] Orem, you talk.

John Dehlin [02:38:46] Well, this has been a lovely day, and it's so lovely to meet you guys. I love the music. Thomas and Cece, I love your story. Thank you. It's just been just so fun and you guys are awesome and I hope you'll stay in touch. And let's. Let's keep building community and do amazing things and we'll. I'll talk to the committee, but I'm going to try and sneak you in at Thrive. Thrive Day is November 14, 2021 in the Salt Palace. We've already got like 150 people signed up and we haven't even started marketing yet. We were shooting for at least 2,000 people at the Salt Palace. It's gonna be super fun. Please go to. Why are you guys laughing?

Thomas Stokes [02:39:28] That'd be a big, big show.

Sierra Stokes [02:39:30] That'd be exciting, though.

Guest [02:39:32] Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Stokes [02:39:32] I'd be down.

John Dehlin [02:39:33] Well, get ready.

Thomas Stokes [02:39:34] I'm ready.

John Dehlin [02:39:35] Yeah. Go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events to register for Thrive Day. There's also a Youth Thrive Day for kids between 12 and 18, led by Jesse Funk. Same day, same venue. You're. You can register at the same site, thrivebeyondreligion.com events for your youth and for yourself. And we're gonna have. We're gonna have Sarah Edmondson from the Ex nexium, cult member from the Vow, HBO's the Vow. She has a podcast with her husband Nippy called A little bit Culty. She's gonna be there. Why are you guys laughing? Lance. Lance Allred is going to be there. He's a former NBA player, played with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers. He's legally. First legally deaf NBA player, was raised in the Allred group. He's. He's got a great story. He's got a TED talk called what is your polygamy? That's got over 4 million views. Lance. Lance is going to be keynoting. We'll have Bill Real there, Radio Free Mormon there. Natasha Helford there. So, you know, Luna. Luna Corbden is going to be there. So many amazing people. Monica Crowfoot and Alan and Katie Mount from marriage on a tightrope. Plus, Kara Burrell is going to be leading a bunch of tiktokers to have a comedy hour. It's going to be so fun. So sign up now. Tell all your friends. Let's fill this thing up. And by the way, it's totally zero profit. Thrive as a nonprofit. We had to, you know, the. The organizers had to put down probably 15 grand just to reserve the Salt Palace. We'll be lucky if we make that back, but we don't do it for the money. But definitely don't think this is anyone getting rich. This is literally just to help you find friends, to help you find community, to help give you tools to navigate your faith crisis, to help you lead a healthy, happy life after religion or after Mormonism. So please come if you want to, and maybe you guys will be there. Yeah, in fact, you guys can set up a booth. Anyone who, like, sells books, sells music, tiktoks, podcasters, you could all set up a booth and you can sell your stuff, your merch, your CDs, whatever you do, people can donate to your Venmo if you just want to meet the artists. So you guys can have your own booth if you want.

Thomas Stokes [02:41:53] Yeah, that'd be sweet.

John Dehlin [02:41:54] And just. Just email thrivebeyondreligionmail.com and Clint will tell you how to set up your stuff.

Thomas Stokes [02:42:01] Yeah, perfect. All right. Sounds awesome.

John Dehlin [02:42:03] Well, you guys are lovely. Take care.

Thomas Stokes [02:42:05] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:42:06] Have a great weekend.

Thomas Stokes [02:42:07] Thanks for having us. It's been awesome. Crazy, cool experience.

John Dehlin [02:42:10] Yeah, we'll keep living a happy, healthy life. Keep on shining.

Sierra Stokes [02:42:13] Yeah, we will.

John Dehlin [02:42:14] That's what it's all about.

Sierra Stokes [02:42:15] And we'll be here.

John Dehlin [02:42:17] All right, thanks, everyone. You guys take care. Thanks for your support. And Kara Burrell. Hope you get well, get well soon so we can have you back. Thanks to Brooklyn and Gerardo and everyone at the Open Stories Foundation. Thanks to all you who donate. Please go to MormonStories.org and become a donor if you aren't yet to help make this possible. And we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.