Introduction to Martin Lock and the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is May 29, 2024, and we have groundbreaking interview today. Today we're interviewing Martin Locke. Hey, Martin, how's it going?

Martin Lock [00:00:14] Pretty good, thank you, John. Good to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:17] Martin, aside from being a brilliant fellow from the uk, from England, London or Bristol, depending on, you know, how much detail you want to know, what's significant about Martin, other than his amazing Mormon story, is for the first time we have on Mormon Stories, a former member of a Mormon LDS Church temple presidency and a temple sealer. So that's fascinating in and of itself, and it's kind of a first on Mormon Stories podcast. We all know now that in the, you know, in 2024 and for the past five, 10 years, Russell M. Nelson has just been going bananas building or announcing temples all over the world. And so talking about temple work is something that's kind of really important because it's a real big emphasis for the Mormon Church right now, but it's also relevant. This interview is important in my opinion, because the Mormon Church is dying in the uk, in Western Europe and in many parts of the world now. Now it's growing in Africa and because of birth rate, it's slowly growing in Utah. But in so many parts of the world, the Mormon Church is hemorrhaging, and it's especially hemorrhaging in the uk and, you know, Martin has been a member in the UK for 57.

Martin Lock [00:01:38] Almost 57 years.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] Almost 57 years. So we're going to be talking about his conversion to the church, his. His younger years in the church and what it meant to him and what he valued in it. And then we're going to be talking about his service in the temple, his time growing, you know, a branch into a ward, serving in various levels of leadership. And then we're going to be talking about the decline of the Mormon Church in the uk, the decline of his own testimony, or his truth crisis, as he likes to call it. And then we'll also be talking about his late wife, to whom he was married for 50 years. And then we'll be talking about again, his views now on temple work as a former temple sealer and former temple presidency member, and any other stuff that he wants to share. So I'm super excited. Without any further ado, Martin Locke, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Martin Lock [00:02:40] Thank you, John. Nice to be with you.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] Okay. Nemo says hi as well. Of course.

Martin Lock [00:02:45] Great.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] Apparently you knew Nemo somehow.

Martin Lock [00:02:47] Yeah, I knew Dougie as I Remember him, Doug? He used to come in when he was a, a service missionary in the London Temple and I was in the visitor center as the director there for two years. He used to come across on occasions to visit and talk to us and that's my first introduction to him.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] What was pre Nemo Douglas like?

Martin Lock [00:03:09] Oh, he was very enthusiastic, I think, because as I remember he was about to get married to this, I think a young lady from Australia or if

John Dehlin [00:03:21] I'm right, I think she's from the uk but yeah, but she may have

Martin Lock [00:03:23] lived in Australia or been on a mission. I can't quite remember, but something along those lines.

John Dehlin [00:03:28] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:03:29] And of course the next thing I, I, I see him on the, his own YouTube program. I little surprise to see that. But I've listened to some of his, a lot of it. Well, a lot of his YouTube videos and I found him very interesting and a very intelligent young man.

John Dehlin [00:03:48] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:03:50] And of course I see, I've listened to him on your shows and I've enjoyed the podcast. Very enlightening, very informative. And yeah, when I get back to the uk, I'm going to make a, a point of making contact with him direct.

John Dehlin [00:04:08] Yeah, yeah. He's excited that you're here. Okay. Well, before we begin, what we like to do is give everyone a chance to just kind of state their intention of why they wanted to tell their story on Mormon Stories Podcast. Other than the fact that I invited you, do you want to state an intention?

Martin Lock [00:04:25] Yeah. A friend of mine, my ex business partner, once said that having served in some prominent positions in the church, knowing a lot of people in the church and certainly in the southern half of England, that my story might be very advantageous and interesting and helpful to people that may be in the same position I'm in. And that's the truth claims of the church and I, but began to question those in the last, certainly the last two and a half years of my life, I've.

John Dehlin [00:05:05] At about what age?

Martin Lock [00:05:08] About 75 years of age.

John Dehlin [00:05:10] Yeah. What's it like to spend, like we'll be talking about 73 years dedicated, well, almost all your life dedicated to the church. And then at age 73, starting to have questions and doubts. That's its own thing.

Martin Lock [00:05:22] Yeah. Well, I, like I said, I didn't have a shelf as much as I had a back burner to put them on. And I thought maybe one day in the future that those questions I had would somehow be resolved.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:05:36] But as I've found by pure accident on YouTube, one day I listened to something About. I knew about polygamy, but then I didn't understand the development of polyandry. And that really made me pursue a deeper dive into what was happening in that time period in the church. And then I discovered lots of other things, and I had questions already. Questions like, well, why did Joseph Smith's counselors either leave the church or were disciplined by him personally and left, you know, people like Frederick G. Williams and Oliver Cowdery, Sydney Rigdon to a degree. And then. Well, the biggest one, of course. The biggest one of all, of course, was William Law.

John Dehlin [00:06:35] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:06:35] And I found that very interesting because of, of course, the. He produced the. The novel Expositor, which was the. The downfall of Joseph Smith. And so that took me into a deep dive. I then got onto other YouTube programs, Mormon Stories, of course. Grant Palmer, my hero, I would say that was my link, really, was Grant Palmer. I listened to one of his talks, the Changing View.

John Dehlin [00:07:04] He served his mission in the uk, Pretty sure. Pretty sure.

Martin Lock [00:07:09] Well, I. I listened to.

John Dehlin [00:07:11] I'm not sure about that.

Martin Lock [00:07:12] I listened to his podcast on the Changing View of God. And that really kind of put things in perspective because I had views on that as well in the Book of Mormon. I thought, well, you know, looking back over it, it never really explained the Godhead as we're taught later in the. As it changed in Joseph Smith's time? And I thought, that's rather strange and peculiar and not very direct. And that was one of the things I put on the back burner, so to speak. And it kind of all came to a bit of a. A climax then. I was. I was.

John Dehlin [00:07:53] And we're getting ahead of ourselves because.

Martin Lock [00:07:54] Yeah, I became very much a critical thinker all of a sudden.

John Dehlin [00:07:57] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't mean to stop you, but that'll be a really good teaser for you to know, kind of what. When we get to that point in the story. But, yeah, some people think that when you come on Mormon stories, you're trying to damage the church or hurt the church or take people out of the church. That's not your intention.

Martin Lock [00:08:18] No.

John Dehlin [00:08:18] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:08:19] Never has been and probably never will be. The last thing I want to do is affect anyone's faith, because I know people need the church. They need the community. They may be vulnerable people on their own with no support of either family, priesthood, or other connections, and I wouldn't want to damage what their intentions may be.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] Yeah. Perfect. Beautiful. All right, well, let's begin. Now. You are a convert to the church you joined at what age?

Conversion to the Church at Age Twenty

Martin Lock [00:08:55] I was 20 years of age.

John Dehlin [00:08:56] Okay, tell us whatever you think is important about your 0 to 20 years that made you a candidate for baptism into the LDS church.

Martin Lock [00:09:09] Well, I've often thought about that. I've always said that I looked at it, that the church found me. I was not a religious person. In fact, I was far from it. Even at school. I had no religious inclination at all at school I, I found it very. I did go to the local Church of England in the village where I was raised.

John Dehlin [00:09:38] What was that village called?

Martin Lock [00:09:40] It was called Whitchurch.

John Dehlin [00:09:41] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:09:41] It's south of Bristol. It's actually in Somerset, not the Bristol County.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] And where's Bristol in. In the uk?

Martin Lock [00:09:48] It's in the west country. It's close to Cheltenham Gloucester. Taunton's below that over the, over the Severn Bridge. You're into Wells, very close to Cardiff. So I was. Whitchurch was a little country town, never really made much growth, but it had two churches. Had a Church of England and a Congregational church. Incidentally, my father was Church of England, my mother was Congregational. My dad was very pro conservative voter and my mother was labor. So they had these opposing forces going on in the family. Although my mom and dad had a good relationship and a good marriage and were wonderful parents to my brother. And I had one brother. So I went to confirmation classes in the village just cuz I think the girls were nice there. And my friend enticed me to go there, which I did. And I was confirmed by the, the Bishop of Bristol, no doubt. And I kind of was very confused about the nature of God, Christian worship, the Bible and all those kind of teachings and what was in context and what wasn't. Understanding was difficult because obviously you're talking about Jewish law and tradition and culture and things like that. And it was, to me and to a lot of people it was all confusing and really quite unnecessary in a young person's life. And then I was always raised to be a good person, to have Christian values. Was sent to Sunday school. I was a very innocent kind of young person growing up. And when I got to senior school or high school as you call it here, I love sporting, loved it. I played a lot of soccer, football as we call it home soccer here. And then I, I went in, down to the gymnasium one lunchtime and the older boys were playing basketball and they said, come in and join us if you want to. And I did. And I just adapted to it very quickly. I was 13 and I got it up a couple of years and I met a basketball club that played at our school. On a Wednesday evening. And I. I asked if I could watch them play. And the man said, as long as you sit on the wall bars and keep quiet, you can watch the game. Which I did. I was 14. And I said, I'd like to. I'd like to join the club. What do I do? He said, well, we train in the summertime. If you'd like to come along in the summer, you can practice with us. Basketball was not a great Sport in the UK in. In the 60s. It was a M. Considered a minor sport. It still is to a degree, although it's professional now. So I enter long there, and they wanted me to sign on for them, which I did. I was quite an athlete. Although I was a short guy. I was very quick and very skilled, I would say. And. And then it moved on a few years, and I was playing at quite a good level at football. And my coach came to me one day and when I turned 19, and he said, we're about to go and enter the National League. We want you to play in our team because you're good and you're an integral part of the starting five. And you've got to make a decision. It's football or basketball. Well, it was a big choice for me, and at the time, and I love both sports, so I made the decision and I chose basketball.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] You chose correctly?

Martin Lock [00:13:47] Yeah, I did. And I had a great career playing basketball in England, and that's all I did. I was probably the only person in the whole of the Bristol area that had a basketball hoop in the back garden, and I would practice out there every night. And then one evening at training, the coach came up to us and said, are we all available next Monday evening because we're going to play against the Bristol Mormons. And I said, who are the morons? And they said, don't show your ignorance, Martin.

John Dehlin [00:14:23] Around what year was this?

Martin Lock [00:14:26] I'm gonna say it was probably around about 65.

John Dehlin [00:14:29] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:14:32] So I was about 18 then. 18 and a half, something like that.

John Dehlin [00:14:36] And you'd never heard of the Mormons?

Martin Lock [00:14:39] I knew they were building a chapel near to where I was born in Bristol. This was the second chapel. And I understood it was being built as a stake center, a future stake center, big building. In fact, it was on the grounds of an old manor house that was at the top of the street where I used to live. As a young boy, I saw the building going up. I remember seeing people working on it. But I never ever met any missionaries or anybody associated with the church. So what happened was we went along on this Monday night to this school in Bristol. We got changed in the locker room, went out there, and there were these 15 young men warming up in uniform, very impressive, knew what they were doing. And we said, oh, boy, we got a game on our hands tonight. And they whooped us. And we learned a lesson. We learned how to play basketball. We learned to be a bit more aggressive. And we knew then that we had to be a bit more developed in our game and our tactics. So it went on. That year was a great year. I refereed them twice. I was a qualified referee. I played against them four or five times. And I made up my mind there and then. I wanted to be as good a player as they were. They were very good. They played for high schools over here. I got to know them really, really well. And then the church, the stake center, had finished being built, and I was invited up to the mission home for a special evening. You see, they were now dangling the carrot to me. I got to know some of those players very, very well. In fact, I still visit one or two of them over here every time I come over. And anyway, I went to the mission home. My coach was there. He was a professor at the University of Bristol, civil engineer and the school teacher where they rented the gymnasium, he was also there. But they kind of vanished. And I was left there. And they showed me a film, presented me with a Meet the Mormons book. It was a big PR campaign at the time. And they gave me a picture of the team, and then they gave me a special award. They gave me this shield which represented their mission. And. And they had me stand up and they said, this is present. We are presenting this to you on behalf of the mission and the basketball team here as the most improved player in the southwest of England. Well, that was quite an honor for me. I'd never had anything given to me like that. And, of course, it was kind of sucking me in a little bit. And I felt a little vulnerable. Looking back, I was a quite vulnerable individual. And they said, we're going over to the church now to have a look at it. And I went in a minibus with the missionaries, about 12 of them, and went there and saw this building in its finishing stages and went back to the mission home. And from there I went home. I got home quite late in the evening. Oh, I had a mill there as well, by the way they fed me. And I met the mission president, which was Ray Barton. He was a heart surgeon. And the. The team was led by a man I don't know if you ever know him. His name was Robert Fotheringham. He was in advertising here in Utah, in Salt Lake. And I've since seen him and he. He kind of promoted this basketball team and they played all over the southwest of England. They won every game. They played about 40 games and they got to the semi finals of the national championships in London, which I also went up to see. And they then started a branch team. And on the branch team they had three Americans, of course, to make it a good side. And I was then coaching as well as playing for my team in the National League. I coached a little team in the Bristol League and we played against the LDS team at the church. And it was a good game and I had an outstanding game. A missionary came up to me after the game and put his arm around me and said, how much do you know about the Mormon Church? And I said, well, I really don't know a lot, but I would like to know more. I wanted to know generally about the church, what its beliefs were, what its doctrines were and how it started, a little bit about the history and because I'd heard only bad things about the church through my mother and my father.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] Do you remember what those things were? Well, it's okay if you don't.

Martin Lock [00:19:36] My father said, they believe in polygamy. I said, what's that? And when he said that to me, I had kind of an inkling what it might be, but I wasn't sure. And then my mother knew about things that were going on in the local church, which were a bit unsavory to say the least. But the thing was, she was right about those unsavory things, I eventually found out, like abuse or adultery and fornication, stuff like that.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] Oh, wow.

Martin Lock [00:20:07] That was going on. Sadly, I'm sad to say I discovered that. And then I also discovered that plural marriage did take place in the church. And anyway, I had some discussions. I had them at the back of the chapel. I couldn't possibly have them at home. That would never be allowed. So I was very much on my own. I had no support whatsoever. This was my own decisions that were taking place. And I had three discussions and the missionary went home, his mission had completed and he lives here. He's from Ogden originally. He now lives in North Salt Lake. Very successful man. And he became a mission president and I had contact with him. So we're now looking 1967 now, and I was coming up to 20 years of age and another missionary took over to teach me and two missionaries Turned up at the door once to track me down. After the missionary went home and my dad had to get him off the doorstep, he had his foot in the door and it was very embarrassing for me. Not very nice, a bit forward. I think he was his own leader. Very, very pushy and that kind of worried me a little bit. Anyway, I had all the discussions. They started right from the beginning. I, I went right through the discussions. I had questions on a prophet seeing Revelator. I said, well, what's he revealing today? And they couldn't answer that, which I was a bit disappointed with. They asked me to read 50 pages of the Book of Mormon. I got to Isaiah and I found that very boring to read. And I didn't feel I was getting much from the Book of Mormon at all. Um, and. But one thing that did, I think, inspire me, I would say I think that's the right word. I like the idea of the work for the dead. I thought that was quite interesting to me. I found that to be very fair.

Proxy Work for the Dead and Baptism Decision

John Dehlin [00:22:26] Can you explain to our never Mormons, kind of just how, what, what you learned about the Mormon Church's work for the dead and then why you liked it to high level.

Martin Lock [00:22:37] Sorry, John, can you just explain that again?

John Dehlin [00:22:40] What, what did you learn? What, what was the doctrine that you learned?

Martin Lock [00:22:43] Oh, of course. Well, I learned about. It was the law of eternal progression and I was learning about the three degrees of glory and the celestial, terrestrial, Terrestrial kingdoms. I thought the impression I got from it was that the Heavenly Father is really quite a fair and just God, that there is room for everybody.

John Dehlin [00:23:08] Tell me if it starts with Jesus saying, you must be born of the water and of the Spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven, which Mormons interpret as what, being saved? And isn't it baptized and confirmed?

Martin Lock [00:23:22] Yeah, Baptism was always on their lips and it still is today. Of course, even the Book of Mormon is full of those statements. In fact, every other page is practically making that statement that baptism is so important.

John Dehlin [00:23:36] And tell me if I'm wrong, but like, if Mormons are less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's population, but you have to have a Mormon baptism with authority, priesthood authority, to make it into heaven. That means 99.95% of Heavenly Father's children on the earth want four more are never going to make it.

Martin Lock [00:23:58] Well, they're lost to heaven, right? According to a Mormon doctrine, they're lost.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] And so how does temple work, Mormon temple work, come into play there?

Martin Lock [00:24:07] Well, because that's their, that's their method of Saving these people, which I find, or I. I discovered from reading the Book of Mormon in Alma, that there's a statement that that same spirit that possesses you in this life will possess you in the next world. So you ain't gonna make it anyway. That's how I read it. It's not gonna be a lot of good to you. That baptism's not gonna be a lot of good to you, because you're gonna be the same person. If you're a bad guy, you're gonna continue to be a bad guy. I don't think you're gonna change.

John Dehlin [00:24:40] That's how you feel now. But back then, I liked the teaching.

Martin Lock [00:24:43] Back then, I thought it was all encompassing. I thought, this is a great method. This is a wonderful opportunity, because, like,

John Dehlin [00:24:50] evangelicals or Catholics would be like, oh, you didn't get the right baptism. You're met.

Martin Lock [00:24:55] You're.

John Dehlin [00:24:55] You know, you're out of luck. Mormons would say, everybody gets a chance. That's right. But you have to have your work done for you after you died.

Martin Lock [00:25:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:04] Someone needs to get baptized in a Mormon temple on. On your behalf.

Martin Lock [00:25:09] Yeah, right. And then, of course, they. They apply all this. Well, you have to do all this work for the dead. If you don't, you're not going to be saved anyway. It's kind of counterproductive to me. I thought, well, one minute they're telling you all this work has to be done, and then they say, well, unless you do your work, you can't be saved either. Which I thought was a bit of a contradiction in terms, bit of a dichotomy, really. I thought, well, how do we go about. And we didn't get a lot of help in those days. There wasn't a lot of help around. The church was very young. It was very primitive. Um, I can remember a time when we. We couldn't even get the Sunday school manuals on time. And if we got the manuals, we didn't have very many. And sometimes we never got them at all. And people were given Sunday school lessons out of their own library of books. You know, they might be teaching from Reuben J. Clark one week or Brigham Young the next. And, yeah, it was. There was no pattern. Yeah, it was very primitive. And it took me six months before I was ordained to be a deacon. And I said, well, what's a deacon?

John Dehlin [00:26:11] You know, real quick, before we get there. So your baptism, what was it that, like, made you decide to get baptized?

Martin Lock [00:26:17] Well, it was like, going back to my earlier statement, it was the teachings of this Proxy work that I felt was very important. And that was really. That was the deal breaker for me. I thought, well, God's being fair then. And it appealed to me. I found it very. I said, well, where did. Where do you do this work? What we do in a temple? Where's the temple? Well, it's in London. How do I get there? When do I go there? When do I do this work?

John Dehlin [00:26:51] Wow.

Martin Lock [00:26:51] You know, I was kind of getting all in. You know, I was. I found it so interesting, and it kind of. That was the nail clincher for me. That's what strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith, not so much the Book of Mormon, but Joseph Smith, this holy man, portrayed to me, this prophet, seer and revelator that I thought, well, perhaps this is the true church. Perhaps this is the only true church on the earth. Perhaps they do have all the answers. And I kind of asked for baptism.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] Were there other things like just the basketball leagues or cute girls or families that looked real like to have Mormon families that had really appealing lifestyles or a nice church? Any other trappings?

Martin Lock [00:27:41] I found the people very, very kind, Very good people, very sincere.

John Dehlin [00:27:48] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:27:49] All trying to do their best. I like the sports program of the church. It was a very great athletic program they had in England. It was attracting younger people like me, sort of 16 to 30, age group, were involved in soccer, football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, lots of things going on. When I was investigating, they were doing a road show. I thought that was. That was interesting.

Early Church Life in the UK

John Dehlin [00:28:18] Tell our listeners what a road show is.

Martin Lock [00:28:20] Pardon me?

John Dehlin [00:28:21] Tell our listeners what a road show is.

Martin Lock [00:28:23] Well, the roadshows in England, they do it differently here. Of course. A road show is a show that goes on the road. I understand. And we. When you have the stake road shows here, the winner takes it on the road to all the other awards.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] But it's like a play or a musical written by the members, performed by the members.

Martin Lock [00:28:40] Yeah, they would have a theme, and the theme might be modern musicals, it might be countries. It might be an era of time where you dress up in costume, put this drama on, and you'd write some music, you'd have songs, you'd have a narrative, a story, of course, and it would develop and had to be done in 20 minutes. If it went over 20 minutes, you got points deducted. It was a competition. And you took care of your lighting and your sound, and you tried to involve as many people as you could. Because in those days, Mia, as I remember, was 12 to 112. So, you know, everybody could join in except the Young. The young primary kids, but 12 to 112 and adults joined in if they wanted to, but mostly young people. And was that called mutual or not?

John Dehlin [00:29:37] It was called mia.

Martin Lock [00:29:38] Mia.

John Dehlin [00:29:39] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:29:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:40] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:29:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:41] Okay. And so all those things were attractive to you. Do you remember having a spiritual witness when he got baptized or not so much.

Martin Lock [00:29:51] That's a, that's a good question. People have asked me in recent years when I've had this discussion about the church and where, how it's going forward. And they said, well, surely you had a conviction, a testimony. And I said, well, I had to analyze that. And I said, well, I believed in a testimony. I wouldn't say it was a deep conviction. I wanted a testimony. I wanted it to be true because the young missionaries were such a credit to the church. And I didn't know all about missionary life then. Of course, I didn't know that some of them probably had issues and problems and challenges and testimonies of their own. But the ones I met were very positive. And so that had an influence on me. And I saw myself as being like them. I was their age. And I remember going to a dance. I was only in the church three weeks. I went to a dance in Cardiff and a member, a lady member, came up to me and accused me of being a missionary at a dance which I shouldn't have been at. And I had to try and convince her that I wasn't a full time missionary because at 20 with a suit on, I looked like one. And of course we didn't have badges in those days to wear. And I had to kind. It was very difficult to convince her that I just joined the church.

John Dehlin [00:31:24] Because you looked the part.

Martin Lock [00:31:25] Yeah, I had a. I had a few issues in the church that were embarrassing. I mean, I spoke to a man once and he said, I went to a district council and they were very concerned about Martin Locke. And I said, harry, why were they concerned about me? He said, well, they were concerned about the young women in the, in the branch, that I was a very eligible young man. And, and Harry said to the district council, he said, well, I wish him well. He said, because I wish I could find a wife. He married very late, by the way.

John Dehlin [00:31:59] Let me ask you this. Early 60s in the UK is prominent in my mind because of what I know as kind of the baseball baptisms kind of phenomenon and the chapel building phenomenon. So David O. McKay is prophet. Henry D. Moyle is like a helper, maybe first presidency. And he decides if you build it, they will come. So kind of Devastate spending Mormon church, build a bunch of chapels and then have sports programs like in the British Isles baseball programs and will baptize a ton of young men who, you know, are really interested in baseball, but they'll have to join the church as a way to qualify to be on the leagues. And then hopefully ladies will, you know, see cute men and they'll get baptized too and that'll be a great way to seed the church. And, and for those of you, we should have our own episode about that. My first Mormon Stories episode was about that. But it turned out to kind of. Well, I think a lot of people got baptized and in some ways I think it did grow the church in the British Isles. It's worth mentioning. Jeffrey R. Holland was a missionary in the UK during this time, so was Quentin Cook. And I think it jump started growth in the Mormon UK church, but also it led to thousands of young men needing to be excommunicated because that was the only way to get people off the rolls. And there were a bunch of men who didn't really want to be Mormon and they didn't want them on the rolls. So it ended up kind of backfiring. And so when you say you were part of a basketball league right around that time period, it makes me wonder whether you had heard about the baseball baptism stuff and whether you saw the results of that during those 60s years in the church in the UK.

Martin Lock [00:33:55] To answer your question, the baseball program as I understand was in the early 60s. It kind of petered out by, I would say by, I reckon by 64, 65 and I'll tell you why. I met a wonderful man in the temple when I was serving there who's from Utah and he'd passed away two years ago. And I met his wife recently down in Sandy. Wonderful couple, helped us out a lot when we first went to the temple. But he served a mission in the Central British Mission and he had a six month responsibility to go into South Wales and sort out the baseball membership. Baseball, baptism, membership. It was very difficult because the records were so poor and a lot of them never attended church. I only know of probably two people in Bristol that came through that program that are still around. But other than that it was a thing of the past. It never developed, it was never really successful in my opinion. But the church development and growth, as you said, is quite true. They had a massive publicity campaign in Britain with the press on the back of the, on the back of the London temple that opened in 1958. Huge publicity on that Big open house. And yes, Henry de Moyle was instrumental. Of course, his ancestors came from Cornwall, the Moyles. And he was very instrumental in the chapel building program of the time, that my friend that was involved with the baseball membership also realized what was going on in Britain. In his opinion, it was too early. He said that to me. It's far too early. But the chapel building program was like mushrooms in a field, growing. They just sprouted up everywhere. All major cities and towns had congregations just left over from after the war, I suppose, had small branches. And there was growth in the 60s. It was, I would say, incredible growth in the 60s, as far as I remember, and was told. And I was part of that. And I was enthused by it, I think, because they had training sessions to train personnel that were involved in mia. They went all over the country, went to Scotland, middle of England, Nottingham. They had these weekends, set up these camps where they instructed people on how to run things, how to do road shows, how to do festivals, how to do sports, how to referee, how to coach, how to organize the events. And I had friends that were very, very involved in that in Bristol, extremely involved. And I still have friends around now that were involved in those programs. And it was very successful. And we went all over the country. We went to Scotland, we went to Birmingham, and then all of a sudden they stopped it.

John Dehlin [00:37:14] But more recently, right? I mean, yeah, about.

Martin Lock [00:37:17] I'm going to say, 15 to 20 years ago.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] Okay. Because I just wanted to say this is something you and I have in common, because my growing up in the Mormon Church in Houston, Texas, Katy area, my fondest memories of my childhood and youth are dance festivals, you know, scouting, war dances, steak dances, golden green balls, road shows. Just the pot, you know, potluck dinners, whatever they're called. Like, the cultural hall was in every chapel, and it was just this big gymnasium with a basketball court that could be used as a volleyball court, but there would also be public dinners there, and there was always a stage and there'd be talent shows. Just the. The really vibrant cultural life. Social life for me was a. Was a gigantic part of my love for the Mormon Church and for my memories in the Mormon Church. And, you know, spoiler alert, we're going to talk about how at some point the church starts downsizing and kind of eliminating these programs, which I think is part of the church's demise in modern era. But I share with you just fantastic memories of the cultural, social life of the church.

Martin Lock [00:38:38] Definitely. I mean, my life was the church. We had firesides, we had Cottage evenings. We had always something going on. We had district conference mine in those days, four times a year, every quarter. We had leadership every month. The church was always open. There was always activity. My life was full. I was fully engrossed as a young man leading up to the time when I decided to serve a mission. So I was really in it, I always say, up to my neck. There was a sad side to that, though. Of course, I didn't do much with my mum and dad. I. I didn't see my brother very often.

John Dehlin [00:39:24] Were they opposed to you getting baptized?

Martin Lock [00:39:26] Yeah, they were okay. I had to get permission. I was 20. My dad signed a little note. My mother was very opposed. It did cause a little bit of a rift between mum and dad. I was unaware, but I was unaware of it. But I was aware of it. And I learned something fairly recently. My youngest son, Joseph, was discussing with a basketball friend of mine that was having a discussion fairly recently. And my friend Alan said to my son, he said, do you realize that when your dad joined the church, Joseph, it broke your mom's heart? I never knew that. That saddened me. I lost my mum at 47, six months after I came back from my mission. I never knew that she.

John Dehlin [00:40:21] She was 47.

Martin Lock [00:40:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:23] Okay, you were.

Martin Lock [00:40:24] I was then 26.

John Dehlin [00:40:25] Okay, okay. Oh, so you went on your mission late?

Martin Lock [00:40:28] Late. I was a late boy, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:29] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:40:30] There were three of us that went out at 24. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:33] Three in your ward or branch, three

Martin Lock [00:40:35] in the host mission.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] Oh, okay. Okay.

Martin Lock [00:40:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] So where were you called to? What mission?

Martin Lock [00:40:40] I was called to the Ireland mission.

John Dehlin [00:40:42] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:40:43] I went there in 1970. August 1971.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] How did that feel, to go to Ireland?

Martin Lock [00:40:48] Well, I. I was. I put my papers in to go to New Zealand, of all places. I was in love with Matthew Cowley and his experiences.

John Dehlin [00:40:56] He was a Mormon leader.

Martin Lock [00:40:57] He was an apostle.

John Dehlin [00:40:58] Mormon leader, Apostle.

Martin Lock [00:41:00] And I was impressed with his experience there. And I thought, that sounds like a nice place to go. And I didn't think of anywhere else in the British Isles at the time. And someone in the little branch I went to in Bristol, who was. This is a lady that was heavily involved in the MIA program and athletic councils of the church in England. She said to me one day, she said, have you got your mission call yet? I said, nope. She said, I'll tell you where you're going to get your call. I said, go on. Then she said, ireland. I went, really? She said, yeah, you go to Ireland.

Missionary Service in Ireland

John Dehlin [00:41:37] What did you think of the Irish at the time? Or did you think anything?

Martin Lock [00:41:40] I didn't know anything about them, John, really. I thought they were all Catholic. I didn't know there was a Protestant faith over there. I didn't know much about the history. All I knew was they fought amongst themselves and they drank a lot

John Dehlin [00:41:56] because the English don't drink. Drink, Right, sorry. The Welsh don't drink and the English don't drink.

Martin Lock [00:42:00] Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Anyway, yeah, so I got my call to Ireland and I was quite thrilled about that, to be honest. I was happy that I was going on a mission. My motivation was that I wanted to. I wanted to learn the gospel because I wasn't learning much in the local church because it was so primitive, I think, and I wasn't getting taught very well. I thought the best way to do it is go on a mission. And I thought, well, why not? Why not go on a mission? And it was. I think it was the best thing I ever did then. It was a great experience. I loved it.

John Dehlin [00:42:42] What'd you learn from your mission?

Martin Lock [00:42:43] Well, I learned a bit about the gospel. I learned how to deal with people. That was my education. Learning how to deal with people, learning how to communicate, learning how to listen, learning how to teach the gospel principles. And all my life I've been an apologist really, for the church. I've had to defend it all the time, around every corner. Had to defend it. But I went there and I. I learned to overcome a little bit of shyness. I came out of myself. I learned to speak with a lot more confidence, whether it was in a lesson, discussion or from the pulpit. I gained a lot of confidence and my mission pres. I was the only Englishman in the mission.

John Dehlin [00:43:41] What?

Martin Lock [00:43:43] I was the only. Well, there were other Englishmen before me.

John Dehlin [00:43:46] Right.

Martin Lock [00:43:46] But while I was there, I was the only Englishman for about between 1820 months.

John Dehlin [00:43:55] The rest were from the United States, mainly.

Martin Lock [00:43:57] Oh, Canada. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:58] Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Martin Lock [00:44:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:00] Interesting. How did you find the Irish people any different than the Bristol people?

Martin Lock [00:44:06] Yeah, well, Bristol people are very reserved.

John Dehlin [00:44:08] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:44:09] You don't ever want to be a salesman and work in Bristol.

John Dehlin [00:44:11] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:44:11] Yeah, they. It's a. It's a. It's a salesman's graveyard. They used to say very reserved people can never make decisions. And it's west country, so it's agricultural.

John Dehlin [00:44:26] Very.

Martin Lock [00:44:27] Bristol. Whilst it's a big city and very historic, you're getting into the country rural. There's really nothing in the church between Bristol and exeter. That's a 70 mile journey. So, yeah, I found the Irish people very, very warm. Very Friendly, especially in the north. And you have to remember, my mission was quite unique inasmuch I spent 22 months of my 24 months in and around Belfast. I didn't go anywhere else. I didn't go north. I didn't go south until the very end. I had 10 weeks in Dublin, and by the time I got to Dublin, I ran out of money. I was quite ill. I wasn't eating properly, and I was training problem missionaries. I had three of them in 10 weeks. Missionaries had issues and challenges, and I was. We used to call people like that a proselyting specialist.

The Church, the Catholic Church, and the Troubles

John Dehlin [00:45:28] Tell us what the Mormon Church was teaching about the Catholic Church. Okay. There's Northern Ireland and then Southern Ireland. Southern Ireland. One is Catholic and one is not. Right.

Martin Lock [00:45:37] Well, one is predominantly Catholic, which is. Which is the republic in the south.

John Dehlin [00:45:41] The south. South Ireland is predominantly Catholic. Northern Ireland is predominantly Protestant, although you

Martin Lock [00:45:47] do have Catholic areas there. And some of them we were never allowed to work in. There was about four areas we could never work in. They were too dangerous. I was there right in the height of the IRA civil rights movement, the trials, the problems there.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] So basically there were terrorists.

Martin Lock [00:46:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:05] Was it the Protestants or the Catholics that were.

Martin Lock [00:46:07] Well, IRA were mostly Catholic.

John Dehlin [00:46:11] Was one wanting to separate from the other?

Martin Lock [00:46:14] They've always been fighting for a united Ireland.

John Dehlin [00:46:16] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:46:17] Yeah. Of course the Protestants protest. They don't. A lot of the hardcore do not want a united Ireland. They want what their ancestors have always fought for. They like the prosperity of the north, and it's a very delicate, sensitive subject. But the civil rights. The Catholics in the north, you see, were not getting the same opportunities as their Protestant neighbors. So if you went for a job and Your name was O'Reilly, you weren't going to get the job. You know, it's.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] What would be a Catholic Irish name?

Martin Lock [00:46:59] Oh, O'Reilly. O. Donahue.

John Dehlin [00:47:05] Those are right. Those are Catholic.

Martin Lock [00:47:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:07] And you wouldn't get a job.

Martin Lock [00:47:09] No.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] If you had a Catholic, you would not get a job because the Protestants

Martin Lock [00:47:13] would take the job. Yeah, they'd always give it favor of the Protestant.

John Dehlin [00:47:16] What would a Protestant Catholic. What would a Protestant Irish last name be? Oh, more so. No O on the beginning, basically.

Martin Lock [00:47:25] No. Yeah, there would be no O's on the beginning.

John Dehlin [00:47:28] Got it.

Martin Lock [00:47:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:29] Okay. And why would it be. What would be unsafe? What peoples or pockets would be unsafe for a Mormon missionary in Ireland, a predominantly Catholic area?

Martin Lock [00:47:41] Because you'd have safe houses there for terrorists, you see? So, you know, I did go into one place once, but I didn't Think about it, really, and I won't mention it, but there's four areas over there you would never go into. But I went there one Sunday afternoon. It looked like we were detectives getting out of a car, suits on, going into a house, you see all the curtains squeeze open. And we were just there to see a member's relative. But that's. It was all. The sister missionaries were always placed in Dublin. It was safer for them to be down there. I mean, it was not uncommon to hear bombs going off and explosions and see puffs of smoke going up in the city.

John Dehlin [00:48:27] And those who were setting off the bombs wanted what?

Martin Lock [00:48:31] Well, that was their protest. To make themselves known that they were a force to be reckoned with.

John Dehlin [00:48:36] And it was the Catholics.

Martin Lock [00:48:38] Well, ira, whatever they were.

John Dehlin [00:48:40] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:48:40] They could have been infiltrators from anywhere.

John Dehlin [00:48:42] The Irish Republican Army.

Martin Lock [00:48:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:44] And again, they wanted a unified Ireland.

Martin Lock [00:48:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:47] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:48:47] And they were following up the Civil Right movement by Bernadette Devlin that started it. And of course, Londonderry was a bad place to be. There were towns that were pretty bad where there were major troubles. Barricades, petrol bombs.

John Dehlin [00:49:05] And generally, was the IRA generally Catholic?

Martin Lock [00:49:07] Yeah, generally speaking, I would say they were.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] Yeah. And then just to complicate things, what were the Mormon Church's teachings about the Catholic Church at the time, if you remember?

Martin Lock [00:49:16] Well, you know, I have known English elders that have gone out there and they come back with all these silly rumors. You know, for example, they would say, now, bearing in mind I served there 22 months in Belfast, so I knew it well. And they would say things like, well, if you go to an LDS sacrament meeting, the Mormon Catholics would be sat one side and the Mormon Protestants on the other. That never happened. We didn't have many Catholic converts to the church. They were mainly Protestant converts. So that really was a not true, what they used to say.

John Dehlin [00:49:54] Do you remember what Bruce R. McConkie taught about the Catholic Church in Mormon doctrine? The Book?

Martin Lock [00:49:59] Well, of course, the Book of Mormon calls it the Great and Abominable Church.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] I mean, it doesn't name the Catholic Church, but that's how we interpret it.

Martin Lock [00:50:06] Well, they spin it. Don't they put a spin on it now, like, they've done everything but the

John Dehlin [00:50:09] way the Book of Mormon describes a bad church.

Martin Lock [00:50:12] They describe it completely.

John Dehlin [00:50:13] Well, as what? As what?

Martin Lock [00:50:15] If any Catholic read that, they'd be embarrassed. What? Shouldn't they?

John Dehlin [00:50:18] Yeah, because it's talking about if they know their history, clothing and, you know, Inquisition, sitting on thrones and, like, fine clothing and apparel and it says horror of all the earth, right?

Martin Lock [00:50:30] That's right, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:31] So is that what you thought was Mormon doctrine about how you should feel about the Catholic Church at the time?

Martin Lock [00:50:39] Well, I understood it. My understanding is it was certainly a view on the, on, on the Catholic Church because it was the only church that ruled the. Ruled the world or the earth.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:50:49] In population wise. And it was quite obvious it was staring you in the face. But there are many other things in the Book of Mormon that stare you in the face. I mean, I had an embarrassing time once in a. In a zone meeting and I think it was my second meeting in my wife's hometown. And the mission president, whilst he never said a lot, he was a wonderful man. But although he never said a lot, he stood up this one time and said, and I was his AP then. So it was very embarrassing for me. And he said, and I had some other embarrassing moments, by the way, being the only Englishman while I was ap. And he said, well, he said, I want to talk to you today in the Book of Mormon about how we beat the British and got our independence and became a republic. And I was sat there cringing in my shoes thinking, did you really have to bring that up today, President? You know, all the elders were looking at me. You know, they felt sorry for me. I just brushed it off and thought,

John Dehlin [00:51:44] well, well, you know, Nemo will love that story.

Martin Lock [00:51:48] Well, it was embarrassing.

John Dehlin [00:51:49] Can you say how crazy it is for one church to call another church the whore of all the earth?

Martin Lock [00:51:57] Well, is this, is this superiority?

John Dehlin [00:52:01] Call it a whore like the Mormon Church called the Catholic Church the horror of all the earth for decades. I just. It's hard to believe.

Martin Lock [00:52:08] Well, John, that's a word that's used a lot by general authorities in the past.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:52:13] And you know what I'm talking about.

John Dehlin [00:52:15] Tell our listeners and viewers what you mean by that.

Martin Lock [00:52:18] Well, it was. Joseph Smith had an angle and a prescript of how to induce young women to be his brides. And if they didn't agree or comply within 24 hours, he made them feel really bad. And the word whore was used on

John Dehlin [00:52:42] several occasions for the women that declined his advances. Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:52:46] Not a nice word to use, is it?

John Dehlin [00:52:47] No, no, it's not.

Martin Lock [00:52:49] And made excuses. He had a good way of getting out of things. He could give a good excuse.

John Dehlin [00:52:55] I'm guessing you weren't taught any of that when you were investigating the church.

Martin Lock [00:52:58] Not at all.

Mission Success and Baptizing Converts

John Dehlin [00:53:01] Really quickly, are you comfortable sharing whether you had any baptisms on your mission and if so, what that Was like for you?

Martin Lock [00:53:06] Well, in Ireland, if you had a baptism, you were doing well in your whole mission. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] In two years, if you had one baptism, you were doing quite well. You were doing well. Okay.

Martin Lock [00:53:19] You know of Todd Compton, don't you?

John Dehlin [00:53:21] Yeah. In Sacred Loneliness.

Martin Lock [00:53:22] Yeah. Yeah, I have the book at home. He served in Ireland. Oh, I'm trying to pinpoint the time he served there. It was during the Troubles. Now he was either there before me or just after me and talking to. I think it was Mormonism with the Murph. I know Stephen Murphy quite well. I used to home teach that family when they lived in our ward. He kind of explained that he was there when the troubles were rife and he said where he served and he only had one baptism.

John Dehlin [00:54:02] Okay, what about you?

Martin Lock [00:54:04] I had about 15.

John Dehlin [00:54:05] Whoa, 15 times the average.

Martin Lock [00:54:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:08] That's why you were AP. Because you were successful.

Martin Lock [00:54:10] Well, I don't know about that. I think the mission president had his. He had me earmarked. He told me, after my second move, I went through the mission home to have a move to the other side of Belfast and the other side of the river. And he said to me, are you ready for leadership? I was out five months in less than five months. And I said, well, what does that entail, president? And he said, well, being a district leader, he said, you tell me what it entails. So I gave a little overview of what I felt it entailed. And he said, well, get ready. So I went to this new move on the other side of the river and we had a big bunch of leadership going home. And I had a phone. I was the last one to get a call to be a district leader that day. And I went to the Stake Center, Hollywood Road, Belfast. And although I was happy to go there, there was another missionary that really wanted to go there and he hated me because I got the call to go there instead of him. He had contacts there, he had a little bit of success there. He wanted to go back, but he didn't. He went down to Dublin, I believe. Anyway, I went there in the. Probably the end of January, early Feb. I went there for six, six months as a district leader.

John Dehlin [00:55:36] Let me ask, did you have a tactic or an approach that made you more successful in baptizing people than other missionaries?

Martin Lock [00:55:44] Well, I think I always had a good spirit of discernment and I told the mission president that as well in an interview. I knew my discussions were perfect. The 92 page dialogue. Brother Brown, I also. I'm not boasting, but I took the time to memorize the additional discussions we had. We had an Alma 32 discussion on faith. We had a discussion on the steps for baptism, which I memorized. And we had one on the Alma 34, which I memorized. And then I memorized all my scriptures. We had 42 of them. And when I did the zone conferences, they. I. They used to call it the. The Elder Locks. Like used to have a name for me. They used to call me the Bloke, by the way. I had that reputation as being the bloke.

John Dehlin [00:56:41] What does that mean to an American? Well, translate for us.

Martin Lock [00:56:44] Well, like a. A Paddy if you're an Irishman, you know, it's a nickname or a jock if you're a Scots.

John Dehlin [00:56:49] Okay.

Martin Lock [00:56:49] Or in Australia they call you a. A Pommy, don't they, or something. But anyway, they called you a bloke if you're English. And so they had a nickname for my little workshop. You know, it'd be like the. Something like, oh, the scripture bash session with Elder Locke. Watch out, you know, it's going to be painful.

John Dehlin [00:57:10] He knows the stuff.

Martin Lock [00:57:10] Yeah, watch out. Yeah, he has all the answers.

John Dehlin [00:57:13] So it sounds like for just a kid growing up and in what, rural, rural England, the Mormon Church would provide all the structure, opportunities for achievement, for advancement, for learning, leadership. It sounds very exciting for a kid. And athletics, like, it just sounds like a wonderful structure to join and become part of.

Martin Lock [00:57:44] Well, the mission president that set me apart to be a missionary was John Matson, and he became a general authority, 70 emeritus now. He set me apart in that blessing. He said, you will blend in with your fellow missioners and that you will succeed in all that you do, blah, blah, blah. And I. And by accident, I suppose I did. I did blend in. I got on well with the missionaries. I got to know them well. I tried to be their friend. Well, I wanted to be their friend. I enjoyed my companions. I had a rough start in the mission. I had a companion that was quite bolshy, strict. He was a year out. He actually knew my wife before I did, before she went on her mission. And so I had a difficult start, but I blended in. I managed to find my feet, as it were, and got to grips with it, and I was full on with the mission. I worked hard every day, every evening, I worked hard, and there was nothing wrong with hard work. I knocked those doors day and night.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Sounds like it was rewarding and gratifying for you.

Martin Lock [00:59:04] It was like a college education for me. That was my college education. Yeah. It grounded me, my Mission president told me when I was in the mission home, he said, don't you dare ever come to Utah. He said, the church needs you in England. Elder Lock. Desperately.

John Dehlin [00:59:24] Interesting, interesting.

Martin Lock [00:59:26] And you have to remember, at that time, August 73, we had our first area conference in England presided over by Joseph Fielding Smith.

John Dehlin [00:59:36] Whoa.

Martin Lock [00:59:36] And he made a statement.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] Now, wait, he would have just been made profit. Yes, at that point.

Martin Lock [00:59:42] Yes, he did. It was a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:59:43] Yeah.

Martin Lock [00:59:44] And he said in the conference, we have 50 young missionaries serving full time from the British Isles. And I was one of them. He said to the saints and the leadership, I want to see 500 in the next few years.

John Dehlin [00:59:58] Wow.

Martin Lock [00:59:58] So they took up the challenge. Well, I kind of set the bowl roll. I was the first one out of Bristol as an elder to serve a full time mission.

John Dehlin [01:00:06] Do you know if they made 500?

Martin Lock [01:00:09] I don't know. They probably did, actually.

John Dehlin [01:00:11] Joseph Heing Smith was like only prophet for like a year. He was, I think he profit for a very short amount of time. So that's interesting. You, you were able to see him. You didn't meet him, right?

Martin Lock [01:00:22] No, I was, I was in the mission in August and the conference, I think was held at the end of August when he made that statement.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:00:30] It was held in Bellevue, Manchester.

Meeting His Wife and Getting Married

John Dehlin [01:00:32] Tell us really quickly how you met your wife and how you got married.

Martin Lock [01:00:36] Well, that's. That was a love story, John, not a marriage story. I said that at her funeral. It was a love story. The missionaries, when they went out from Ireland to go anywhere in the world, would come back through the mission home to be released because it was a mission in a district. Two young sister, when I was there, I was only there three weeks. And three sister missionaries came home from missions. One was from Hollywood Road, Sister Moffat, and the next one came in a week later. She was Sister Orm. She was from somewhere in Belfast. And third one that came in was Jennifer Weir from Porter Down, Ireland. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] So you, your, your wife was. Was Irish.

Martin Lock [01:01:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:22] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:01:22] Protestant family background.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:01:24] And they joined the church in 1950. Very primitive then, very small, one of nine children.

John Dehlin [01:01:32] Wow.

Martin Lock [01:01:33] One boy.

John Dehlin [01:01:33] That sounds Catholic.

Martin Lock [01:01:34] Yeah. But they wanted a large family. They took five years to have their first child. And my wife was third in that line. Anyway, she came in the mission home. I was talking to her with my companion. He wandered off, left me talking to her. She was a delight to talk to. We talked all about her mission and where she lived. She lived in a little country town 30 miles away and spoke with a very slight accent. Little Bit, little bit American, Canadian and a little bit Irish, Northern Ireland, but lovely accent, very sweet girl, red hair, dressed up very nice to see the mission president to get her release. So after about, it seemed like 20 minutes or so, she walked up the stairs. I've been to that mission home recently, by the way. She walked up the stairs with the president and I was still stood there in all of her, really. I was in awe. And she looked back at me to see if I was still there, probably. And our eyes just focused and something took place in that smile. And my companion said to me, he knew the family because he was the zone leader up there in Porterdown, the area that was the north of Ireland, the real north. And he said to me one day, she's from a nice family. He said, you ought to get acquainted with her. I said, yeah, she is rather nice. So anyway, the family, I asked her at the time, I said, what's your plans, Sister Weir, going forward? She said, well, this was the downer now. She said, well, I'm planning on going to Rexburg, Idaho to study with my missionary friends. Under my breath I went, oh, dear. And so I realized that the president invited these families back for an evening dinner as families to have, like a little homecoming. Well, this was November in the January. I had to go up and fetch them in the minibus. They had no car. And I went up my companion to fetch them. I sat with Jan in a front seat on the way down, on the way back, we were in the back seat, sat opposite each other. My companion did the driving and we talked again. It was all above board and everything about our mission and her family and. But at that evening, I said to her, I said, jan or Sister Weir, I said, what's your plans going forward with America? And she looked at me straight in the eye to eye, and she said, I am not going to America. Now. Now, I didn't know the reason why. I did find out later, after we were married, and I'll come back to this in a minute, but she showed me her patriarchal blessing that she had while she was a missionary. And there were only two patriarchs in the whole of the British Isles at that time. And this patriarch's name was Ralph Mount from St. Albans. And she went to get her blessing. And, well, after we were married, she showed me the blessing. And I was dumbstruck, to be honest with you. The blessing said in this one sentence, it said, there is one foreordained for you whom you will someday meet through your activities in the church. And whom you will readily recognize. And she never showed me that until we were married. So about two weeks before she passed away, I said, jan, I've never asked you this question, but when did you actually fall in love with me? I'm interested to know.

John Dehlin [01:05:10] Did you know she was dying at the time?

Martin Lock [01:05:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] You asked this?

Martin Lock [01:05:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:13] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:05:14] I never asked her this question. It was a silly question in some respects. But I did ask her the question. And she said, the very first day I met you in the mission home. And then she asked me the same question. I thought this was coming now what? So I said to her, she said, when did you fall in love with me? I said, it was when you told me you were not going to America. And she said, well, how nice. But then. Then the big. The big swinger was. I was. The mission president came up to my room one day and he said, you've had an invitation to go to Porterdown for a luncheon appointment on Sunday, the so and so a few weeks away. He said, do you think you can make that date? I said, I'll have to check my diary. President with a wink in my eye. Anyway, I said, yeah, I can make that. So they always had a lot of people for lunch. The weirs were notorious in those days. All the zone leaders went there, the district leader, all had their lunch there. The house was always full. Wasn't a very big lounge. They extended the tables, extra chairs came out. But her mother would cook a dinner for 20 plus people every Sunday. And so my companion said, well, I've cleared the table. You have to do the dishes. So I said, okay, I can do the dishes. So I go out the kitchen and there's Jan slaving away. Her name was Jennifer, but everybody called her Jan. So there she was, sleeving away, and I had to say something to her. This was getting stupid now. So I had sent her some flowers, by the way, on her birthday as a missionary.

John Dehlin [01:06:55] Yeah, now that's naughty.

Martin Lock [01:06:57] I know.

John Dehlin [01:06:57] At least in my Mormon experience.

Martin Lock [01:06:59] Well, I had to show her some kind of. I had to give her some sort of notice. So I sent her these flowers. She sent me back a little curt letter thanking. Thanking me for sending the flowers. Anyway, there's another story behind that. But I'm in the kitchen. I think, how do I do this? What do I say to this young lady? So I plucked up the courage and I said, jan, there's something I need to say to you. And she looked at me, she said, well, okay, what's that? Very matter of fact. And I said, well, I got about three months left on my mission, and I would really love to come back over to Ireland to get, you know, kind of acquainted with you. I'd like to get to know you better. And she looked at me and she said, well, is that all? And she really put me on the spot. She didn't say, well, that would be nice. I would look forward to it. She said, is that all? Is that it? Then I said, so I had to break another rule now. So I said, well, the truth is, Jan, I'm in love with you.

John Dehlin [01:07:59] Oh.

Martin Lock [01:08:00] And whoa. Yeah, whoa, indeed. So what's the response going to be? Is it going to be rejection or. She turned to me and that lovely look on her face, and she said, well, I want you to know that I'm in love with you as well. I said, well, let's get back on with the dishes then. And then, of course, I had to break the news to my mission president, which was quite funny. And I took him aside one day. I said, can I have a meeting with you, President? He said, yep. What's on your mind? I said, well, I want to tell you that I'm very fond of a young lady here in the mission, and as far as I'm concerned, I've. I've fallen for a president. I'm in love with her. I'd like to. I'm going to marry her. He said, why? He said, she's a fantastic woman. I said, well? I said, well, who are we talking about, President? He said, well, I hope we're talking about Sister Weir. From Porter. Down I went. I was very relieved when he said that, by the way. I said, yes, we are talking about Sister Weir. He said, great decision, Elder.

John Dehlin [01:09:01] He knew.

Martin Lock [01:09:01] He knew.

John Dehlin [01:09:02] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:09:03] He said, we've been thinking about it a long time, Sister Summerhays and I. Oh, wow. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] Well, the truth is, the church and, you know, in Utah, anywhere outside of Utah is kind of referred to as the mission field. But if the church was going to develop a strong, you know, a strong culture, a strong community, a strong presence in the uk, it would really want Mormons to be finding and marrying other Mormons and then staying. And so the church seems to me would have had a very strong vested interest in matchmaking its missionaries and return missionaries.

Martin Lock [01:09:39] Well, he was a very understanding mission president. He knew I was a mature individual. He knew I'd done everything he asked me to do. He just said to me, stay focused. I said, I'm focused, President. You've got no problem there. I'm Focused on the mission. I've not got much time left. I am focused. I said. And he gave us all the responsibility in the mission field. He looked after the members, we developed the missionaries. We did all the zone conferences, and it worked a treat. I had a great companion with Elder Scott. Wonderful man, Very good friends still. And he encouraged me as well. And so that was the way it was. And then one day, we had moves, and I had about 10 weeks left, and the first move off the board was Elder Locke out of Red Hill into Dublin. My companion was like that with the card, and I was, what's going on? You know?

John Dehlin [01:10:36] So was that closer or farther from Sister? Where?

Martin Lock [01:10:38] Oh, further away.

John Dehlin [01:10:39] Okay. So the Mr. President wanted to get you away from her.

Martin Lock [01:10:42] Well, there was a reason, you see, rumors started to fly.

John Dehlin [01:10:46] Oh, okay.

Martin Lock [01:10:46] And it wasn't healthy. It wasn't healthy for Jan. It wasn't healthy for me or the mission.

John Dehlin [01:10:52] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:10:52] And I said, I go and do the moves. He said, no, you stay here. I want to talk to you. So I sat back in my seat and he said, went like that. Oh, did that with his chin, you know. He said, I'm doing this for the benefit of you and Jan. He said, few rumors spreading around. He said, I thought it might be best now to just move you down there out of the way, let it quieten down. And, you know, my last interview in Dublin, all he talked about was Jan and me in our marriage.

John Dehlin [01:11:21] Oh.

Martin Lock [01:11:21] And he stood in for my parents. So my. None of my family.

John Dehlin [01:11:25] When you were married?

Martin Lock [01:11:26] Yep. None of my family were there. None of them.

John Dehlin [01:11:28] How long after your mission ended did you get proposed. Did you propose to Jan and get married to Jan?

Martin Lock [01:11:34] I proposed to her while I was a missionary.

John Dehlin [01:11:36] What?

Martin Lock [01:11:37] Well, that was another funny instance. I had a missionary going home, and he's in a nursing home in Layton. I should go and visit him tomorrow. I've been to see him three times. Lovely guy. And he was going home and he said, let's go and find Sister Weir tonight. And I want you to.

John Dehlin [01:11:52] I thought you were in Dublin.

Martin Lock [01:11:54] No, no, I was still in a mission.

John Dehlin [01:11:55] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:11:55] He said, I want you to propose to her. I said, mike, I can't do things like that. He said, oh, it's only for a bit of fun. And I went, well, okay. Well, she was at a dance, some show going on at the stage. This is really funny. So I was there with Mike outside that we. No phone boxes would work. They're all busted. They're all damaged in the Troubles. But we did find A phone that worked. Finally. So I made the phone call to the center, the stake center, and a convert of mine answered the phone, a girl called Jennifer. And I said, oh, hi Jennifer, it's Elder Locke here. Oh, hi, Elder Locke, how are you? Blah, blah, blah. I said, yeah, I'm doing fine. I said, could you just. Is Jan there tonight? Oh, yeah, yeah, she's there. I said, good. Could you ask her to come outside for just 10 minutes? I'm with Elder McShane and another girl, a friend of Jan's. So what does this girl do? Jan's stood right next to the mission president and she says, jan Locke. Sorry, sorry, sorry, let me repeat that. She says, jan Weir, Elder Locke's on the phone for you. Of course, the mission president, he might have been a bit deaf, but I'm sure he heard that. Anyway, Jan crept out to the phone, a little bit embarrassed, and she said, who is it? I said, it's Martin. I said, can you come outside just for a few minutes? Yeah, okay, I'll come out. So she came out, it's quite a cold night. She had a little bit of a shawl on and she had a long dress. She looked gorgeous as usual. And I was there with Mike McShane. Mike Machine said, well, go on then, do the business. So I walked 10 yards down the pavement outside the building. I said, jan, will you marry me? You still love me? Yeah. Will you marry me? Yeah. When? I said, I finish in August. How about September?

John Dehlin [01:13:44] What? September. A month after your mission was over.

Martin Lock [01:13:49] Six weeks. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:51] So you're married in the London Temple?

Martin Lock [01:13:54] Well, you have to get married in

John Dehlin [01:13:55] a chapel first outside of the United States.

Martin Lock [01:13:58] Yeah. So we married in her hometown, Porter down. She had all her friends there. We had a big, a big event and we had to catch a plane to go to London Temple to be sealed. And the tragedy was there was a bomb scare in the airport. So we didn't fly out until 11 o' clock at night. And fortunately I had an older gentleman that was a friend from Bristol. He was on a little mission there with his wife. And we managed to make some sort of contact with the phone. He said, what time are you flying in? I said, it's going to be after 12 o'. Clock. Well, I got, I got the minibus. We flew into Crawley. He said, do you still want to be sealed tonight? I said, of course we do because we've booked a room already in the accommodation over there. So we said, I'll have to get a sealer ready. So we were sealed at 1:30am what, in the morning.

John Dehlin [01:14:50] And you said your mission president stood in.

Martin Lock [01:14:53] Not for that. He stood in for the civil marriage.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] Got it, yeah. Because why?

Martin Lock [01:14:59] Because I couldn't get any of my parents there.

John Dehlin [01:15:01] Oh, so your parents weren't at your wedding?

Martin Lock [01:15:03] No, because my mother was ill. Oh. She was dying, so nobody came. I couldn't even get my brother there. I couldn't get one of my best friends there.

John Dehlin [01:15:12] That wasn't because they were excluded from the temple. That was just. It was too far at the time and they weren't well.

Martin Lock [01:15:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:17] Okay, so why was that sad to not have your parents at your wedding?

Martin Lock [01:15:20] Yeah, it was a bit. Yeah. Yeah, they were sad they couldn't be there.

John Dehlin [01:15:23] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:15:23] Because I was mixed up in this different kind of faith, this sort of cultish faith and as they would call it and. Yeah, like a Jehovah's Witnesses. That's how they looked at it. Like I was belong to the Jehovah's Witnesses because my brother got involved with them once and jacked out of it. So I had nobody there, just Irish friends, a few missionaries. I knew people I knew from Ireland because I served 22 months in Belfast. So I. Yeah, I knew a lot of people.

Temple Ceremony and Early Married Life

John Dehlin [01:15:51] Let me ask, what. So you went, you went through the temple when it had a lot of those really kind of violent Masonic artifacts, including the, the penalties, you know, where you, where you make the motion of slitting your throat and cutting out your heart and disemboweling yourself. It also mocked other religions in the temple ceremony at the time. It had Satan doing his mischief. You know, it was a temple ceremony that I experienced as well. Was there a movie when you first went through it?

Martin Lock [01:16:29] Was the movie.

John Dehlin [01:16:30] Okay. What was your, what was your native emotional reaction to that temple ceremony when you went through it for the first time?

Martin Lock [01:16:38] I went with an old priesthood gathering at the temple to get a lot of male names done. I went with a group of men in the ward, probably about six or seven of them. And one of them, I remember one of them, he said to me, you'll regret doing this. You're in for a shock today.

John Dehlin [01:16:57] You were getting your davits out for the first time. First time before your mission.

Martin Lock [01:17:01] There were two of us in this all priesthood gathering. There must have been about 300, maybe 400 men in that endowment room. They had a balcony around the top.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] Wow.

Martin Lock [01:17:12] Could see extra people. It was packed to capacity. It was a three hour deal. And I was. Well, I didn't know what I was doing there. To be Honest, I found it all very strange. The guy on the veil got impatient with me because I was not standing right. Or holding the. Clasping the hand. Right. I found it all very weird. And yeah, it was strange. And I thought, well, where did all this come from? Did this come from Joseph Smith? Was he that clever of a man to reveal all this? I mean, wow. It was weird. It was very weird. Then we had a lecture. We had to listen to a 15 minute lecture. Yeah, it was weird and not.

John Dehlin [01:17:57] But not weird enough to make you question whether you wanted to stay a member.

Martin Lock [01:18:01] No, I thought this was a done thing.

John Dehlin [01:18:03] So you made your decision.

Martin Lock [01:18:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:06] Okay, Carry on regardless.

Martin Lock [01:18:08] You know, eventually I'll find out what it all means. Yeah, that was what happened with all my back burners. I'll find out one day what it all means.

John Dehlin [01:18:15] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you married Jan a month after your mission. Six. Six weeks after. Unfortunately, we probably won't have time to really, really delve into your family, you know, the growth of your family. Y' all ended up having how many children?

Martin Lock [01:18:35] Six children.

John Dehlin [01:18:36] Six children. That's a lot. Yeah, but she came from nine.

Martin Lock [01:18:39] Yeah. And we wanted it. We wanted a biggish family.

John Dehlin [01:18:42] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:18:43] We had four girls first, and then Aaron came along.

John Dehlin [01:18:46] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:18:46] And then Joseph.

John Dehlin [01:18:48] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:18:48] There was six years difference between the two boys. We had four girls under six years, six years of marriage. We had four girls by then.

John Dehlin [01:18:55] Okay. And if you had to summarize your happiest memories in the church with your young family and with your, you know, your kids as they become teenagers, list off the types of offerings or activities that the church offered you and your wife and your kids in the UK that brought you joy or fulfillment or meaning. Just to give people a sense for what the church meant to you and your family.

Raising a Family and Church Involvement in the UK

Martin Lock [01:19:27] I think the involvement, family involvement, kids singing as a family. Jan would dress them all in the same outfits. People still laugh now that all the kids, not the boys but the girls, were dressed in all the same outfits with the boys kind of similar color with a tie. And we would sing at Christmas and we would be involved in the homeless shelter in Bristol every Christmas. We'd all go down as a family and do things down there, always of service to people. We taught the children to be independent. We taught them to engage with adults, to be kind, to be courteous, to be good mannered to when the door opened to welcome them into our home. Our home was an open home. The door was always open to people, anybody and everybody that was their lives they were involved in. All the activities, road shows, singing events, festivals, sports. We were just a complete family. We looked the lds, typical lds, involved family. Dad was the priesthood holder, Mum was the great homemaker. Wonderful homemaker. And people. We reached out to. People we've always reached out. We've always been engaging to people. My family would tell you that.

John Dehlin [01:20:52] Did y' all do the scripture study and the fam. Home evening and all that stuff?

Martin Lock [01:20:55] Well, we, we tried family prayer. Yeah, family prayer, blessing of the food. Always, always assigned it out. Family home evening. We're always kind of. Yeah. Not too heavily involved. I did. I never wanted to. What's the expression, Ram it down their throat type thing. Some people do it religiously. I wasn't that kind of person. I was a more hands on, teach by example, follow me, follow the leader. Follow the leader of your mom wasn't. We used to share scripture, you know, we used to do things in the summer. We'd go out and play down the field together, invite other people to join us. We would play hard, I'd work hard, we'd always play hard. I'd take them to the theater, concerts, things that were fairly uplifting.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] What about sports?

Martin Lock [01:21:51] Sports? Yeah, all the kids played sports.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] Church sports or.

Martin Lock [01:21:55] Yeah, all those kind of things.

John Dehlin [01:21:56] Yeah, okay.

Martin Lock [01:21:57] Yeah, we got involved with that. But then of course, it died out, you see. Yeah, it was taken away from us.

John Dehlin [01:22:01] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:22:01] Eventually encouraged the kids to go to university. They all went. Bar the youngest boy, Amy did a little bit towards that. All the rest got degrees.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] I mean, I, you know, sometimes I'm accused of like hating the church or want to destroy it, but if those who know me know that I loved my Mormon upbringing. And that's. That's part of what has impacted me so much, is because I didn't hate my Mormon upbringing. I loved it. I loved everything about it. And just the memories are phenomenal. And it just sounds like in the UK you had. You and your kids had. And your wife had a very similar experience of just an amazing positive structure for raising a wonderful family, for raising good kids and to have strong family unity.

Martin Lock [01:22:53] Yeah, we did. We had all that. We had all that.

John Dehlin [01:22:56] It was great.

Martin Lock [01:22:57] We were a great family. People, I think I could say with my hand on my heart, people admired us. They said there's a good example of a good family. I mean, Saturday evenings before church, my job was to clean the shoes of the kids, get the clothes ready for Sunday, get the baking done for Sunday. Never filled the fuel up in the car on a Sunday, never went to a restaurant on A Sunday. Never went to see a show on a Sunday. Might go out for a walk in the countryside, get back to nature. But we kept the Sabbath holy. Traveled many, many miles to get to the temple in London to do vicarious work.

John Dehlin [01:23:37] Was that like a five hour drive? What was the drive?

Martin Lock [01:23:39] Well, in the early days it was five hours.

John Dehlin [01:23:42] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:23:42] Until the motorways were built.

John Dehlin [01:23:44] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:23:44] Then it got down to two and a half hours.

John Dehlin [01:23:47] Okay. Okay.

Martin Lock [01:23:48] But our commitment was always there.

John Dehlin [01:23:50] Yeah, yeah. Coffee and tea. Oh, no tobacco.

Martin Lock [01:23:55] No. Never touched tobacco. I haven't touched tobacco or alcohol for 50 or 50. Well, I never smoked really. It was easy for me to live the word of daddy's. I was a sportsman.

John Dehlin [01:24:06] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:24:06] I thought, that's healthy. I never smoked anyway. I drank for about a year. Hated the stuff, to be honest.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] Before you joined the church?

Martin Lock [01:24:12] Yeah, for about a year. Meddled in it, you know, a bit of fun with my friends.

John Dehlin [01:24:15] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:24:16] But never, never enjoyed it. Waste of money. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:22] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:24:22] I lived. I want to live a good life, healthy life.

John Dehlin [01:24:25] Was the fact that the Mormon Church was American in its origins a positive thing for you or a negative thing for you? Or neutral?

Martin Lock [01:24:34] I would say a little bit of a negative thing.

John Dehlin [01:24:36] What?

Martin Lock [01:24:37] Well,

John Dehlin [01:24:39] why is that?

Martin Lock [01:24:41] Well, you know, Jesus Christ coming to America. Well, that was kind of hard to take.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] You didn't believe that?

Martin Lock [01:24:47] I found that hard. I find it incredible now.

John Dehlin [01:24:50] Right.

Martin Lock [01:24:51] Yeah, for.

John Dehlin [01:24:51] Yeah, but I mean, I mean, Michael Jordan, like, okay, let's go back to Dr. J or will Chamberlain or Bill Russell. Like, if you love basketball.

Martin Lock [01:25:00] Yeah, I loved all that.

John Dehlin [01:25:01] Then you must have loved, you know, the fact, you know, the, the, the church was American for. And then there's American baseball and entertainers. The Osmonds come along.

Martin Lock [01:25:11] Yeah, was.

John Dehlin [01:25:12] So. But, but, but I also know that, that Americans are often viewed as boorish or arrogant or, or ill mannered, you know, and there's always the political stuff. So was it mixed, the fact that

Martin Lock [01:25:24] the church was American? It was a bit mixed. I realized that the. There was a big influence of the Utah Church. We can't live the Utah Church in Britain. It's impossible. There's too many things going against it geographically. It's spread out small in numbers, small in leadership quality. Yeah. It's just, you can't do it. It's impossible. You can do some of it, but the trouble is we try to do all of it. And it just, you know, I felt sorry for people when I first joined because they were always at the building in meetings, always. They never went home. Families were Falling apart. They didn't realize it, they were falling apart. And I've seen families fall apart. It's dreadful. I've seen a lot of divorce, dreadful separation, it's dreadful.

John Dehlin [01:26:13] But that can happen with or without the church, of course.

Martin Lock [01:26:16] And I didn't expect it so much in the church.

John Dehlin [01:26:19] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:26:20] I felt with everything, the knowledge and the information, information that was eventually coming through, I thought we had enough to keep us on the straight and narrow, to keep us focused.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:26:31] Or perhaps I was over focused. Perhaps to me, I was focused, you know.

John Dehlin [01:26:35] So as I'm thinking about when things started to change for the church, there was some point, and I don't, I think it might have been Packer who, Boyd K. Packer, who was behind this. But like you and I would agree that that whole roadshow, temple trip, youth conference, dance festivals, golden green balls, cultural hall potlucks, that whole element, the cultural element of Mormonism was kind of what made it so amazing and attractive and compelling. And then at some point Packer and other church leaders apparently said, everyone's too busy, we're stressing people out. Everyone's, you know, being overworked. We've got to simplify down to the bare bones. And they started cutting the sports programs, cutting a lot roadshows, cutting a lot of these cultural events. And that did simplify. But what sociologists tell us is the more the religion demands, the more people are committed to the religion and the less the religion demands, the less committed they are to the religion. So there's a double edged sword of simplifying but also making it less compelling or powerful and ultimately engaging in the lives of the members. And that's, it's like they killed the cultural backbone of the church as they started to weed out these programs. Now that's my perception. What's your perception?

Martin Lock [01:28:10] Well, that's exactly right. What you said is exactly right. I couldn't agree with you more. The other thing, the other element to it I would add is that it's also they were teaching this family unit orientation. It's about the family, protect the family, teach family. In other words, the thing, what happened was it isolated people because you didn't get included. If you're on your own, like you do get, you do get older people, women and men on their own, nowhere to go on a Sunday, no one to talk to, no one to have a discussion with, never included. And some of the problems you have back home, you have family cliques in the units, the family dominate activities and leadership especially. And so these families don't even start. They don't even continue to talk to you. They would ignore you because they have all their, their own family connections to keep them together. They don't need anybody else to join in their groups. And I see this a lot in my own ward back home and I see it in other wards where there are big family connections. So it has a double whammy effect. Not only are the programs taken away, but the families become isolated. And therefore I see now what we have is a Sunday to Sunday church. Nothing happens in the week. They're trying hard, some areas are trying hard to create some things to weld us back together again. But I think we've lost the plot now. I really do. We've lost the plot. It's very sad. I see this decline. There's a brother in my ward back home, he's very serious about the church, bless him. But he said to me one day, now they've taken everything away. There's nothing to replace. So when someone joins the church who for example is a member of Rotary or former Mason or some other club that does charitable work, they join the church and what do they replace their lives with? Because the church demands their time. And you can't be a Rotarian anymore because the church wants that time, that contribution, whether it's financial or otherwise. And therefore what do you replace it with? Oh well, you can go to the temple, you can trace your ancestors and you can be at that temple, up that M4, M25 every other week, you know, then they're trying to revitalize that in our ward at the moment. Go to the temple, go to the temple. But it won't work. Ministering doesn't work very well. No accountability doesn't work. People say, well, I don't have to report on it, so I won't bother with it, you know. And I used to be a faithful home teacher every month. And you know what? I'd always get the worst families to visit. Do you know what I mean?

John Dehlin [01:31:08] Worsted in what way?

Martin Lock [01:31:10] The ones with troubles, ones with issues, ones with challenges, kind of semi active, come out once in a while. And I always used to get those to visit and take a brother weaker with me. And so I do in a double job. I was trying to help him and then help these families. But I did my home teaching every week and I was a full tithe payer for all those years and I paid a lot of money into the church. Yeah, a lot of money.

John Dehlin [01:31:36] Yeah, yeah. Well, really quickly, what was it like to be a Husband, to be a dad of six kids, to be serving intensely in the church and to be trying to build a business or businesses.

Martin Lock [01:31:52] Wow, that was busy, especially the first few years. I admitted to my son Aaron, my eldest boy, on one occasion I actually apologized to him. I said, I'm sorry I don't spend much time with you. I wrote him a letter when he was on his mission and I said words to that effect. I said, I apologize and I'm sorry I didn't spend as much quality time with you that I did with the girls. Maybe because I was busy with the business, building the business. And years ago I said to my wife, when we had a tough start out in life, I said, I will make this up to you one day. And I'm still doing that. I think I'm still trying to make it up to my children and my brother. I mean, I had nothing to do with my brother for years. Even when I was at the temple, I never spoke to him for three years. And I said to him, I said, I'm sorry, Steve, that I've neglected you. He said, oh, don't be sorry. I know you were busy. I know you're involved. He said, there's no one more surprised than me that you've come out of the church. Even my friends know you're a member lds, and they've always asked from time to time. Oh, how's Marcus doing with his assignments in London? Oh, he's, he's come out. He's what? People are staggered, shocked.

John Dehlin [01:33:09] Well, we, well, that's a, that's another foreshadowing of what is to come in your story. But did you feel like it made it difficult for you to have a high quality marriage with your wife? All the busyness, or were you all able to have a pretty healthy friendship and relationship?

Martin Lock [01:33:27] Well, we loved each other.

John Dehlin [01:33:28] All the busyness.

Martin Lock [01:33:29] We had challenges. When we got married, I busted my leg up playing sport. I lost my job. She was pregnant with our first child. We were living at home, my parents. I had no money. I just got a good job. I lost the job because of this injury and that was a challenge. But Jan stood by me and we had a lot of faith and we got into our first home. And the very first night I came home from work in that new home, we had nothing there. But I walked in at 6 o' clock and there was a little orange box on the floor. We had no seats to sit on. She had a little tablecloth, little dolly, little balls of flowers. And she made me a fantastic Dinner. And we sat and cried. How are we going to do this? How are we going to make the mortgage payments? But we did. And we had blessings come our way, and we did it because we loved each other and it was never an issue in our lives. I said to someone recently, I never, ever impose myself on my wife in an intimate way. It was enough for me to hold her hand, to touch her, to smell her perfume, and just to touch her skin and just to love her. I just said, that was enough for me. And I said that to someone recently. And he said to me, five years ago or seven years ago, he said, your wife said the same thing to my wife. It was always enough. And I know how much she loved me. I've checked it all out with her sisters, and I'm grateful for that. I knew she loved me, and I certainly loved her. And. And we always overcame it. She always had time for me. Even when she went through the menopause in her life, I was very patient with her. And she said, you're so understanding. I said, well, it's just because I love you, Jan. You're everything to me. And we got through everything together. All the challenges, the downside in the business, when we had a struggle. On one occasion, things weren't looking too good. Recession, when we had the babies, and I used to help with the babies and change them and get them ready. We were never late for events, always on time. But I always made time to take her away weekends occasionally, so we could have time to ourselves and to readjust, rethink, recalibrate. I would spoil her. And all those things got us through. She could trust me. She said, I can implicitly trust you, even when you go out and meet ladies in a house to measure up or give a quotation. She said, I never worried about you with your work. Never. And that was the way it was. It was a. We had a wonderful marriage.

John Dehlin [01:36:19] Yeah, 50 years.

Martin Lock [01:36:21] 50 wonderful years. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:25] How did you end up. So we've never had a guest. We've had former mission presidents, former area authorities, you know, former stake presidency members, former bishops. We've never had a former. That I know of, a former temple presidency member, Tom Phillips. I'm not sure if he was ever. He was never in the temple presidency, but, you know, he's pretty high up. Yeah, it's a pretty high up position to be in a temple presidency. One of the three people that were in charge of running a temple, because temples are super sacred. It's. It's the most sacred thing, probably the most Sacred place in all of Mormonism is the Temple. Am I, am I overstating that?

Martin Lock [01:37:12] Well, some would view that. Yeah, I would. I would also view the most sacred place in your home.

John Dehlin [01:37:16] Right, yeah, I think that's also true.

Martin Lock [01:37:19] Might be one against the other, I don't know. But yeah, I don't. I understand what you're saying. Yes, it is.

John Dehlin [01:37:23] Yeah. Super, super sacred. So how did you become such a high level Mormon leader to be able to become a member of a Temple presidency? Just talk quickly about like the path that you took to that high status position.

Becoming a Temple Sealer and President

Martin Lock [01:37:40] That's, that's a very good question. I've often asked, asked that question myself. Raymond Lowry became the new Temple president.

John Dehlin [01:37:50] Had you been bishop or stake president or anything?

Martin Lock [01:37:52] I've been a branch president in the war four times on the High Council.

John Dehlin [01:37:57] Stake High councils, yeah. Okay.

Martin Lock [01:37:58] One in Bristol, three in Cheltenham. Three times. Three times a branch president's counselor, once the branch president and twice on the bishoprics.

John Dehlin [01:38:09] Okay. So always involved a lot of leadership.

Martin Lock [01:38:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:38:13] And very faithful. Yeah, Yeah. I was your typical Mormon family.

John Dehlin [01:38:19] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:38:19] Had a lot of good friends. People respected us as a family. So I met Raymond Lowry on my mission, my second area. He was the newly called young branch president. He's my age, he'll be 77 this year. He's a few months younger than me. Wonderful, humble man. He became the bishop eventually and became the stake president and an area authority which was the regional rep then in Scotland. So I didn't see him very often, not much at all. Did see him in Cheltenham once where we had Elder Packer there and he was there as the mission president. He was only there for three months. His wife became very ill, she had cancer. So they went home. They were home for 10 years. And he got a call from Elder Ballard to be the new Temple president in London. My wife was over here. My wife was over here at the birth of one of Aaron's children, I think it was Emerson. And I was at home and I was going to join her. One evening I got home from work and my daughter said, there's a strange man that's been on the phone tonight with a weird accent. Dad, he wants to talk to you. So I phoned the number, I didn't know who I was calling, and it was Raymond Lowry. And I said to him, I said, oh, hi Raymond, I recognize your voice, or I should say President Lowry. And he said, how are you? And we were talking away and he then said. I then said, well, Jan and I are looking forward to coming to the temple and we're going to give two years service at the temple. And. He said, well, what about. I said, we're going to look forward to serving under you for two years. He said, well, what about serving with me for two years? And to be honest, I didn't take any. I didn't take any. I didn't take the upside of what he was saying there. And he asked me what I was going to do, what my plans were, and that was the end of that. I went over to Ireland. I mentioned to Jan that I had this strange call from Raymond Lowry. Unusual. What was that about? I told her, she said, oh, that's interesting. You did tell him we're going to go to the temple for two years. Said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she comes home from America and we came in on different flights and within an hour we were together and we were going to bed one evening and she said, do you think that President Lowry has now called the new counselors? And I said, oh, yeah, Done in dusted Jan. I said, we'll read about it in the Ensign in the British Isles segment in the middle. We'll read about that next month. It'll all be there. Went to bed. That was the end of that. The very next day, I had a phone call from Germany. And my wife gets me on the phone and she says, martin, she says, you've had a phone call from Germany. I said, oh, what missionary do we know from Germany that would want to speak to us? Because we had one or two from Germany. She said, well, try Elder Kapischko. And I went, elder Kapischko, Do I know him? Oh, I said. I said, he's the area president, isn't he? She said, yes, he wants to speak to you, but I told him you had a busy day. So he said, well, call by 4:30 your time today and you'll get a direct line to him. So I called back at 4:30 and got straight through to his office and we had a chat and he asked me three questions. And my wife kept saying in my ear, say yes to that question. Say yes to that question. And say yes to that question. I was so nervous. Anyway, he said, that's fine. Then I'm going to issue a call for you to serve for three years in the London Temple. And I went, wow. With President Lowry? He said, yes. I went, wow, that's fantastic. I was thrilled to bits. And when we got up to our shops that afternoon, Jan kept saying to me, why did I keep saying yes to those questions? I said, because that's what you told me to say, love. So he said, don't you tell anybody until you get a letter back from Salt Lake Temple Department. And that went on and on and on, and we never got a letter for ages until three weeks before we were due to go there. And then we broke silence on it. So that was how I got called. Our stake president knew he had a phone call from a member of the 70 about my worthiness and my ability, I suppose, and he gave a glowing report and that was that.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] What role did the temple play in your life in the 30, 40 years leading up to that call? What temple activity did you regularly engage in?

Martin Lock [01:43:18] Oh, well, we always found the temple an important place to go, but we didn't go that often when the kids were small. We made the effort, but it was always a challenge. They were little, demanding, active kids. Child minding was not easy, but we used to attend when we could, and it was paramount in our vision and understanding. And in 2001, our bishop came to us and said, he was our bishop at the time. I think he said, it's about time you two went and worked in the temple. And I said, well, what does one do in the temple? He said, well, go there and find out. So we said, well, okay. So he said, I'll arrange that. I'll phone the temple president and make sure they know you're coming up and they'll want you there for a week. I said, a week? Why a week? He said, well, they want to train you. I said, train us for what? He said, well, they want you to be ordinance workers. I said, well, what does an ordinance worker do? He said, well, you'll find out when you get there. So we went up there for a week and we met President Jones. And within three days he invites us into his office and he said, I've heard good reports about you two. Could you come full time and work in the temple? I said, president Jones, I said, I'm running a business. I said, I can't leave that business at the moment. It's impossible. Oh, yeah. He said, I remember you had a business because you'd done work on the mission home for me when I was there, blah, blah, blah. And I said, yeah. So he said, well, carry on. If we can see you here once a month, that would be fantastic. So every month on a Friday, we travel to the temple. We work every evening and then we got on a late shift and we wouldn't get to bed till one o' clock in the morning. And Then we'd be in the temple. We didn't know any different. We go in the temple instead of quarter to 10, we'd be in the temple for half past seven, get five hours sleep. We'd be back in the temple until one person said to us, you don't have to be in the temple till quarter to 10. You're on a late shift. I didn't know anything about shifts at the time or what was what. All I was happy to do was serve. And we picked it up very quickly. I mean, I was officiating within that first week. I could officiate pretty much everything. I learned all the other areas. The slowest one was the initiatory. Took a while to learn that.

Explaining Temple Ordinances and the Endowment

John Dehlin [01:45:43] But can you, can you explain to our Never Mormons in whatever you know. And I'll just acknowledge that talking about what goes on in the temple for Mormons generally is forbidden. In fact, before you go in to take out your endowments, you don't even know what you're going in to do or what's going to happen or any of that stuff. You do learn about baptisms for the dead as a kid, and it's very much like a normal baptism. And Mormon kids get baptized when they're eight. And the baptism in the temple for the dead is very similar to a baptism for the living that happens in a Mormon chapel. The only difference is when you go to the temple to get baptized for the dead, you're baptized in the name of somebody else. So it's like I baptize you for Jose, who is dead, and then you get baptized. But aside from that, when you're an adult going through the temple for the first time, you really have no idea what you're getting into. What are you comfortable communicating with our never Mormon audience about the main things that go on in a temple that would at some point need to be managed by a presidency, just to give them a sense for what happens. And if you want to say, I don't want to talk about it, that's totally fine. I just want to give you a chance to say whatever you wanted to say.

Martin Lock [01:46:58] Well, some people going through for the first time, man or woman, they are taken through the temple either by the matron or the assistant matron, that would be my wife, or by the temple president or by his counselors. Most of the time I had a lot of responsibility in the temple in that presidency. The temple president did not know much about temple work or how to conduct the training or the instruction or how to operate it. He Left a lot of the responsibility to me. The other counselor served in the church, seminary and institute department. He was the director in England or for Britain. Great man. And he didn't know his way around either. A lot of it fell on my shoulders. So I had to set up everything in the temple. So when a new person would come in, more often than not, I would take them through everything in the temple. That was what they had to participate in. Taking them down to the locker room, showing them what they had to wear to receive an initiatory ordinance.

John Dehlin [01:48:12] Is that called the washing?

Martin Lock [01:48:13] The washing and anointings.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] Yes, That's a ceremony.

Martin Lock [01:48:16] It's a ceremony where they put white clothes on, but in. In earlier times, it would just be

John Dehlin [01:48:22] a shield, like over the silky poncho.

Martin Lock [01:48:26] Like a poncho where you were opened at the sides.

John Dehlin [01:48:28] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:48:28] Not done up in any way. A little bit embarrassing for people. I got a friend who would never do that again. Doesn't like. Doesn't.

John Dehlin [01:48:38] Because people can see your nakedness on the sides.

Martin Lock [01:48:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:41] And then they're anointing you with oil.

Martin Lock [01:48:43] Oil, water, and then oil. It's the same blessing, but just ones with water, ones with oil. You move around different cubicles, and then you would be.

John Dehlin [01:48:54] And what's the purpose of the washing and anointing ritual or ceremony?

Martin Lock [01:48:58] They call it a preparatory ordinance. You are there prepared to receive the endowment ceremony.

John Dehlin [01:49:06] So you need to be washed clean of your sins.

Martin Lock [01:49:09] Yeah. Washed clean from the blood and sins of this generation.

John Dehlin [01:49:12] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:49:12] And then anointed to become such.

John Dehlin [01:49:14] So it's. It's a man or a woman anointing you with oil in different parts of your body.

Martin Lock [01:49:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:19] Is there any other part? Is there. Is there.

Martin Lock [01:49:22] Do they put all that was changed? Of course.

John Dehlin [01:49:24] Yeah.

Martin Lock [01:49:25] And they just. You just place the hands on the head now.

John Dehlin [01:49:28] Okay.

Martin Lock [01:49:28] And proceed with the. The narrative.

John Dehlin [01:49:31] And they. They say a prayer.

Martin Lock [01:49:32] Yeah. A blessing type thing.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] A blessing.

Martin Lock [01:49:35] Yeah, it is.

John Dehlin [01:49:36] Are the words.

Martin Lock [01:49:38] The words still refer to the different parts of your body? Still the same, but the hands stay on the head.

John Dehlin [01:49:45] Okay. So it's a ritual with oil to anoint you and wash you clean in preparation for you receiving your endowment.

Martin Lock [01:49:54] The holy endowment.

John Dehlin [01:49:56] Tell people what the endowment is?

Martin Lock [01:49:57] Well, the endowment is referred to as a gift. And what would happen to the new. The new patron? They would go into a room, receive their new name? Of course. They'd go into a room after these initiatory ordinances, and you'd spend 10 or so minutes with them, just giving them a bit of a preamble to the endowment. You would tell them what the endowment means. It's a gift of knowledge, of empowerment, of new knowledge to them. Where you're going to make a sacred covenant between you and heavenly Father. Where you would be. You'd obligate yourself to service and to the four main covenants that you make. And you would hold them secret, that you would never divulge what those covenants are about. And then he'd be there most of the time with his father or an escort of some description. It would be a best friend or a brother or a brother and a father. And they would have that preamble. Then they would be seated, then escorted to what we call the assembly room prior to going upstairs to the endowment room, where they would sit on the front row of seats next to their escort and they would see a film and it depicts the creation. And there they would go through these sacred covenants and obligations that were to be held. I mean, members, the brethren now say, well, they're not sacred, they're not secret. They're sacred. But it's the same thing, same difference. In my opinion, it's there to be held secret. You do not discuss those things outside the temple, those obligations of covenant making. You're dressed in white. You change robes, white robes. Someone officiates a sacred altar, and it's all done by a visual as well as a narrative. And it usually would last these days, about an hour and a half or so. And then you'd be presented at the veil of the temple, which represents the veil preceding meeting God.

John Dehlin [01:52:15] This is like a hanging sheet, hanging

Martin Lock [01:52:17] shield with holes in, where you exchange hand grips and give the tokens of the priesthood to somebody representing God behind the veil.

John Dehlin [01:52:28] And just. Just to restate if I'm getting it right, so you get a new name. That's one of the main things you get. You get a new name. Right. Everyone's given a new name.

Martin Lock [01:52:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:52:38] Everyone gets their washing and anointing, their initiatory, and then everybody goes to their endowment where they make four. You said four covenants. It's the law of sacrifice, the law of tithing, law of the gospel. Law of the gospel. What are the ones?

Martin Lock [01:52:53] It's been a law of chastity. Law of chastity and the law of consecration.

John Dehlin [01:52:56] Law of consecration. And consecration is what?

Martin Lock [01:52:59] Everything. You dedicate your time and talents to the building of the kingdom of God in Zion upon the earth.

John Dehlin [01:53:06] You committing to give your life to the church for your entire life?

Martin Lock [01:53:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:09] Is tithing one of the laws?

Martin Lock [01:53:11] No, that Encompass. It's all encompassed.

John Dehlin [01:53:14] Okay. In the laws of the gospel, chastity is, you know, no sex outside of marriage.

Martin Lock [01:53:18] Yep. Yeah, yeah, they changed that slightly over the years. I explained it to my wife once and she missed. Was no sexual relations at one time.

John Dehlin [01:53:28] Right.

Martin Lock [01:53:28] It's now sexual intercourse.

John Dehlin [01:53:30] Okay. Oh, I made that change.

Martin Lock [01:53:32] Yeah, I forget now, it might be the other way around. I forget. But it adds a slight connotation to it. So there should be no sexual relationships.

John Dehlin [01:53:41] Okay, got it. Yeah, they made it more broad.

Martin Lock [01:53:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:44] Okay. Okay. So you make pretty serious covenants with the church that you don't know you're making before you get there.

Martin Lock [01:53:53] No, sir.

John Dehlin [01:53:54] So imagine if you're told the most important religious ceremony of your life. You're going to go do this when you're 19 or 18 or 21 or whatever. You don't know what you're committing to. You're there with all your friends and family and then all of a sudden they're saying, you know, do you solemnly swear, whatever. To give your entire life to the Church, for your entire life, for the building up the strengthening of Zion, yes or no. And you're on the spot. You got to decide if you want to make that covenant.

Martin Lock [01:54:26] It's not really a covenant, is it? Because you don't know what the covenant is. A covenant is a two way promise. Surely you shall have the opportunity of knowing what that covenant is about. And also, of course, you have the opportunity to withdraw if you so wish.

John Dehlin [01:54:37] And the Church does give you at the very beginning, an opportunity to withdraw.

Martin Lock [01:54:40] Yeah, but who's going to withdraw? I mean, you got your. Sometimes you've got your family there and you've got your friends there and other friends and it's a little bit embarrassing, isn't it? I have seen it happen once with an American sister. She didn't really. She didn't really withdraw at that time. She withdrew right towards the end. And we had to make her sit in the chair and I had to contact her bishop over here in America. I forget what hour of the morning it was.

John Dehlin [01:55:07] Did she say why she was withdrawn?

Martin Lock [01:55:09] Well, she said. Well, she just said, it's. I'm not ready for this. Oh, no, I'm not ready for this. It's a lot of nonsense. But our bishop informed me that she was well prepared, as I remember.

John Dehlin [01:55:22] But so, so your overall thoughts on the. I imagine that when you went through the temple, both at first and over the decades, you were a faithful member, you were happy to make all those covenants. You were Proud of them, right?

Martin Lock [01:55:38] Yeah, it was my, it was my, it was my commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I, I, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] And when the church now constantly refers to the covenant path, they're talking about the covenants you make at baptism, but mostly they're talking about the covenants you make at the temple.

Martin Lock [01:55:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:57] To give everything to the church. Right. Basically to give your life to the church.

Martin Lock [01:56:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:03] You do for your whole life. Yeah, yeah.

Martin Lock [01:56:05] People say, well, you know, the best place to be is in the temple, you know, because you learn a lot. Well, well, you don't really, they keep saying, well, I always learn something new or something different. Well, that doesn't happen for me. I don't learn anything new or anything different. I've tried that tactic and I think it's an old nutshell that people throw around. I, I find also I've learned that the temple experience, most of what you learn about the gospel is not in the temple, is it? You spend most of your life outside the temple. The temple just reiterates a covenant, this binding as far as the LDS Church is concerned. But most of your living, the gospel is in the walls of your own home and associating with your people you work with and people you live with, your community. The temple reinforces all of that. I think people that say, oh, I love being in the temple, I love being close there. Yeah, but most of your life is not in the temple. And I used to find, when I was in the temple for three years, when Monday came our day off, I used to say to my wife, come on, let's go, love, let's go and visit somewhere. Let's get some fresh air, let's recharge the batteries. Let's experience something different. We've had this for five days, full on instructing people. And I did a lot of that. I, I did so much of that. I, I kind of forgot the impact of what I was, what the temple's really for. Because I was involved in the administration, the, the workings, the running of the temple. I think the patrons probably got the experience they were looking for, but looking back, I don't think I did. Mine was very mechanical, very physical, very hands on, sorting out, putting out fires amongst workers that had issues. You have some of them, you know, some were very, very good, but some of them just didn't get it, did they? What they were there for? For some, it was a status symbol. I work in the temple, I'm an ordinance worker, you know, know that kind of thing. And we had people come to us and say, I'd like to be an ordinance worker. And I'd start talking to them. Well, how far away do you live? Do you realize what the commitment is? And there was a time, sadly, when if you couldn't make the commitment, you were released. And these are people that lived 130 miles away, 180 miles away. Couldn't always get there. Car would break down or something would happen in the family and they would release. These people made a big mistake because they were always short of workers.

John Dehlin [01:58:56] Yeah. Okay. In addition to doing the washings and anointings and the endowment and the covenants, you also learn these handshakes that literally, you're taught will be required of you when you die and you go to heaven. If you don't get the handshakes right with whoever is on the other side, you won't be allowed into heaven. And there's the first token of the Aaronic priesthood, the second token of the Aaronic priesthood, then the first. And they're basically the Masonic grips that a Mason would learn. Any thoughts on. This idea of needing to learn literal handshakes to be able to make it into heaven, Any thoughts on that?

Martin Lock [01:59:40] Well, I've heard that story before. There'd be no one on the other side to help you get through the veil. You'll have to memorize it all. That's why you've got to keep going to the temple. You must learn those handshakes. They're important. That's rubbish.

John Dehlin [01:59:53] You don't now. But now you don't like that.

Martin Lock [01:59:55] Well, I knew that anyway. I mean, let's think about it. If you're an old person going through the veil and you might be deaf, you might be blind, you might be impaired some way, you might have very bad arthritis, you might not quite remember all the words. Someone's gonna have to help you because

John Dehlin [02:00:13] you have to remember these sayings as you're doing the handshakes.

Martin Lock [02:00:16] Someone's gonna have to help them, aren't they? Someone's always gonna be there to help you. Yeah, that's obvious.

John Dehlin [02:00:22] Yeah. God's not gonna keep you out if you say the words wrong or you, like, put your thumb on the wrong knuckle or whatever.

Martin Lock [02:00:26] Well, I've done all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many, many times. Because I always try to do it correctly because it's a teaching moment. It's an opportunity. That's why they go back many times. Repetition is a good way of learning. And they used to say, don't correct people too much. Or they'd say, Hit the veil. That is correct. Now, they might have said it all wrong, but you still say that is correct. I say to people presenting on the veil, please concentrate, sisters or brothers, think about what you're doing, doing there. Don't get distracted, you know, and. And concentrate and help people. Some people don't want to be helped. Some people don't like you all over them as a worker, correcting them. But just be gentle, be kind, be thoughtful, be sensitive.

John Dehlin [02:01:12] So you would say, if they say the words wrong, let them through anyway. Is that okay?

Martin Lock [02:01:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:17] Okay. All right. And then there's the penalties that they used to have in. If you ever divulge the signs and the tokens and any. I mean, I guess they've taken those out. What do you think about the fact that the temple is supposed to be given by revelation from God, and yet in response to public criticism and pressure, they've changed it so much over the past 50 years?

Martin Lock [02:01:44] Well, I find that incredible.

John Dehlin [02:01:45] I find good incredible or bad incredible.

Martin Lock [02:01:49] Bad incredible.

John Dehlin [02:01:52] I'm sure you're glad you're not slitting your throat in the temple, right?

Martin Lock [02:01:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:56] So it's good in that way.

Martin Lock [02:01:58] How is it that the baptismal prayer or the sacrament prayer, for example, has to be word perfect, and yet in

John Dehlin [02:02:06] the house of the Lord, it has never changed, Right?

Martin Lock [02:02:08] And never changed?

John Dehlin [02:02:09] Yeah. I mean, I guess with the sacrament prayer, they changed it from wine to water.

Martin Lock [02:02:15] Water, yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:16] So they did make a slight change,

Martin Lock [02:02:17] but basically it's got to be word perfect. They always look across to the Bishop Rick, don't they? Have I said it right? Bishop?

John Dehlin [02:02:23] Oh, if you say it wrong, you

Martin Lock [02:02:25] got to say it again. Same with the baptismal prayer. If you dunk them first time and it's wrong, you got to dunk them again. So I find that strange that the temple changes when there are statements by the past prophets that said everybody is to be saved and exalted under the same covenant and the same ordinance. To quote Joseph Smith and John Taylor, very adamant, it should be the same. And I feel that in the house of the Lord, they've changed it so many times in recent years, you can't keep up with it. And people used to come, workers used to come to the temple and approach me and say, anything new this week? I need to learn any changes. President Locke? I say, no, it's all the same. The last time you came, and then when they're gone home next month, something's changed and altered. And the biggest thing for me, with all the endowment ceremony and all this Statement by Brigham Young that you have to walk back to get back to God. You have to pass the angels who stand as sentinels, being able to give them the keywords, signs and tokens pertaining to the holy place, priesthood, and gain your exaltation in spite of earth and hell. I thinking, goodness me, how does Jesus feel about his atonement and his garden of Gethsemane and his suffering on the cross? What does that mean for us now? So does that lose meaning? Does that lose integrity? Does that lose our understanding? Where does the atonement come into this? From a statement from Brigham Young like that? I find that incredible. I find that I can't accept that. You have to accept that Jesus died for me as an individual, for my sin, and it's about building a relationship with him. And I used to get people come to me in the temple and say, don't talk much about Jesus Christ. Does. Does now just in the past few years, but doesn't.

John Dehlin [02:04:38] Like we're in 2024. And just in the past couple years, they've kind of added a lot of Jesus.

Martin Lock [02:04:44] Yeah, I knew they would. I knew that would come.

John Dehlin [02:04:47] But. But in your experience, prior to the most recent changes, there wasn't a lot of Jesus in the temple?

Martin Lock [02:04:52] No, I mean, the whole more of Satan. What he takes prime position, Satan.

John Dehlin [02:04:58] There, There is a. In the film or in the play, there's an actual Satan character that's quite prominent because there's Adam and Eve, very prominent, and Satan in the garden. And then there's Peter, James and John and God. And I mean, I guess Jesus and God are walking up in the clouds, up in the councils of heaven, right? Yeah, but it's mostly God talking about Jesus, Right.

Martin Lock [02:05:18] And then I say, oh, wait, no,

John Dehlin [02:05:19] God tells Jesus to talk to Peter, James and John, right? No, yeah.

Martin Lock [02:05:25] It's all. It goes down the line. It's patriarchal, it's subordinate. You know, you. You talk to me and I talk to him and he talks to him, you know, and then it comes back down the line again. I mean, they're taking a lot of that out now because it was very time consuming.

John Dehlin [02:05:38] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:05:39] But, yeah, you know, it's. It's like a lady came to me once, I, I knew quite well, and she said to me, why does the woman kind of subject herself to Adam in the garden and then Adam subjects himself to Jesus? I said, that's a good question. I said, but it's all about order. It's order in the kingdom. I said, and you're subordinate to your Husband, aren't you? But now that's changed. So she's probably quite happy now. She's got a prayer answered there. You know, it's very subtle. It's even subtle when you think about the Adam God doctrine. And it's not a theory. That's a doctrine that was taught, and it's in the temple today, still there. And people don't recognize it, but it's there. I said, well, you know, who was Adam? Well, he was placed in the garden. I said, yeah, but who was he? Oh, yeah, he was Michael. I said, yes, that's right. And what have you got to do to create an earth or a world? You have to be a God. So who created the earth with Jesus? Why didn't Jesus create the earth with his father? No, it's plainly taught in the Mormon Temple that Michael becomes Adam. Adam is already a God. That's why he's the God of this earth. And it perpetuates all. You can see it there. Yes. And you got to be astute to see it, I think. And I never saw that for years. Never saw it.

John Dehlin [02:07:08] And the idea is that we're literal offspring of God, both spiritually and physically. There wasn't a belief in early Mormonism of organic evolution.

Martin Lock [02:07:19] No.

John Dehlin [02:07:20] And so we're, you know, so Adam as a God, would have come to this earth to then perpetuate, I don't know, the. The race of God's children on the earth. Right.

Martin Lock [02:07:34] Gulch and embryo.

John Dehlin [02:07:36] Yeah, yeah. And then. And so we're literally. Because in Mormonism, one of the features as it evolved with Joseph Smith is that God has a body of flesh and bones, that Jesus has a body and flesh and bones, and that they were once mortals like us who achieved godhood status.

Martin Lock [02:07:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:55] And so Adam, the only way to get humans on the earth and to get spirits into those bodies is for there to be a first human. And so it must have been Adam who was also a God. I don't know. Is that it?

Martin Lock [02:08:09] Yeah, it's hard to comprehend, but that's kind of it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:12] So also, another thing that happens in the temple is temple marriage, where when couples first get married, they're sealed for eternity in the temple. And then if they convert to the church and then get married later, after they were married civilly, they would get sealed as a couple. And if they have any children, the children will be sealed to the couple. So those are the main things that happen in the temple. We pretty much covered it.

Martin Lock [02:08:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:38] Okay. And then the second endowment. Is there anything you want to say about your knowledge or lack of knowledge about the second endowment that happens in the temple, You. You would have been in the temple that Tom Phillips would have received his second endowment in, am I right? Probably.

The Second Anointing and Sealing Couples

Martin Lock [02:08:56] I might have been around then as an ordinance worker, but I didn't know him. I didn't know that happened. President Lowry, I think, told my wife that he received it. Now I know that President Nelson came over one weekend. We weren't there because the Lowry's used our bedroom and President Nelson was a member of the quorum of the 12. Then he used the downstairs apartment where President Larry lived. He was there, but he told me he came over to see his daughter. He had a daughter serving in the temple. Now that may well have been right, I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:09:27] But you think he might have been going there to receive a second?

Martin Lock [02:09:30] Quite possibly.

John Dehlin [02:09:30] Now, looking back and they're told they have to lie. If anyone asks, they can't tell why they're there.

Martin Lock [02:09:35] I've been asked quite a few times if I've received it being sealer and a counselor in the temple. And I said, nope, never received it.

John Dehlin [02:09:44] You were never invited to get your second?

Martin Lock [02:09:47] I know what it's about. And I was flabbergasted then when I found that out. That was another thing to put on the back burner. The second endowment. Well, what is that all about and why is it? And then again, my ex business partner said, next time he said this a few years ago, he said, next time you go to the temple, listen to the opening gambit of the endowment. You'll hear it said there that you're now only ordained. The time will come when you be called up and anointed. Whereas now you're only anointed to become such. Think about the wording. That's what it means. And he's right. That is what it means.

John Dehlin [02:10:23] Yeah. And we're going to be having a whole series on Mormon stories about the second anointing. And we've of course interviewed Hans Matzson and Tom Phillips in the past who talked about theirs. But. But it is the highest ordinance in Mormonism is the second anointing. That's super secret. So were you not trained about or informed about the second anointing in your training as a temple presidency?

Martin Lock [02:10:45] Never discussed.

John Dehlin [02:10:45] Never discussed. Okay. Nemo is. He's listening in. Hey, Nemo. And Nemo is informing us that Tom Phillips received his second anointing in the Preston Temple, which is not the London Temple.

Martin Lock [02:10:57] No, could not be. Probably right.

John Dehlin [02:10:58] Thank you. Thank you. Nemo.

Martin Lock [02:11:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:00] Yeah. And then Julia's is giving us the phrase anointed to become such. Right?

Martin Lock [02:11:06] That's right, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:07] Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anything interesting? And you sealed. So you would marry couples in the temple. You would seal couples together. That's a pretty big deal to seal.

Martin Lock [02:11:19] Well, I used to get. I was very blessed. I got requested to be a sealer by lots of young couples. Some of them have now left the church. Yeah, quite a few of them, I would say, that I know of personally.

John Dehlin [02:11:29] So people you sealed in the temple have since left the church?

Martin Lock [02:11:32] Oh, yeah. They've given up on the church.

John Dehlin [02:11:34] Okay.

Martin Lock [02:11:34] I mean, I've looked at the ceilings in the church. I used to enjoy doing it. Big honor, big privilege. I was a young sealer. I was ordained by Jeffrey R. Holland. I was the first one of three that day up in Solly Hall. We had a half an hour interview with him. He was very funny and amusing with us. And I said, well, we'd like to serve a mission eventually. He said, it looks to me like you're ready right now to go on a mission, Brother Locke. And I said, well, thank you for the compliment. And we had a little nice chat with him. Nice man to me. And so I. I was 61 years of age when I was made of sealer. He said, I was quite young to be a sealer. I said, well, thank you. Very involved with the temple then. And I was one of the youngest sealers up there. I'd be one of the oldest ones now in time served. But I've often thought, well, where were these sealings performed in Jesus time? What was the purpose of the temple in Jesus time? And you do a little research on that, and you realize, of course, it was the sin offering for Israel under the Mosaic law, and there was no temple marriages that I know of or celestial marriages or anything like that. My own opinion is, I believe the endowment was instituted to protect the plural marriages that went on in Nauvoo. That's my firm belief. I don't think I'd be far wrong, but I think that's my. That's my conclusion. It was secrecized mainly to protect those plural marriages. And that's why these penalties were instituted, was to put them under severe penalty. And if they.

John Dehlin [02:13:27] If they told anyone polygamy was going on. Is that right?

Martin Lock [02:13:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:13:29] Okay.

Martin Lock [02:13:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:30] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:13:31] It was all kept very under. Underground.

John Dehlin [02:13:33] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:13:35] And I believe it was the downfall of the church.

John Dehlin [02:13:37] Polygamy.

Martin Lock [02:13:38] Yeah. I believe it was a terrible stigma. I believe that's why we don't get many converts in the Church is because people don't want nothing to do with the Church. It's cultish. Because all cults, I've learned most of them go down the same route. It's power. It's money. Money inherits power. Power, you're above the law. And Joseph Smith was very much above the law. He ignored the Ten Commandments. He ignored everything. He was above the law. Everything he said went, if you raised your arm, metaphorically speaking, watch out, the Danites would be after you very much. So there were terrible things that went on that we don't know about. The general public of the Church do not know the history of the Church. It's very weak because it's never taught. I taught gospel doctrine. My last calling was gospel doctrine. Teacher for three years. And when I got to section one, three, two, I daren't discuss it, but I found out that's the polygamy section

John Dehlin [02:14:39] of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Martin Lock [02:14:40] The manual only goes up to verse 45. Anyway, they don't want to discuss the rest. It's too dangerous.

Polygamy, Temple Secrets, and Sealer Role

John Dehlin [02:14:45] Okay, so can I blow your mind for a second, Martin?

Martin Lock [02:14:47] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:14:48] You knew about the association with polygamy in the Mormon Church before you got baptized? You told us here.

Martin Lock [02:14:54] Yes, in your story.

John Dehlin [02:14:55] And that didn't keep you from getting baptized?

Martin Lock [02:14:57] Not at the time. Because I understood then it was no longer practiced. Yeah, I didn't.

John Dehlin [02:15:02] That's still true.

Martin Lock [02:15:03] I didn't know when it. I didn't know when it stopped officially. And I didn't know it carried on to the 1930s either. Yeah, I've learned an awful lot about this doctrine. So I. I put it on the back burner because I thought one day it'll all be explained to me. Well, I found out my own explanation, the history of the Church now. So I don't need anybody else to tell me about it.

John Dehlin [02:15:23] Yeah, okay. Anything else you want to say? You said it was a very administrative role, being a Temple presidency member. I imagine you enjoyed being a sealer.

Martin Lock [02:15:35] Oh, I loved it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:37] It's a special moment in people's lives.

Martin Lock [02:15:39] It's a special moment. I made it special for them. We were always taught never to draw attention to yourself, never to have any little five minute talk. We used to say the maximum was 15 minutes to give a little talk to the couple. Well, 15 minutes is too long. You have to remember in England they've already had a wedding ceremony. They may have had a reception. They come to the temple and they're very tired. They're exhausted. So my talk, five minutes max of encouragement and tell them what my wife and I experienced about being married for so long and what the secret was to that marriage and would employ those words to them and then really get on with the sealing ordinance and make it really special for them. Make sure we got the room ready. Make sure we got the right persons to be the witnesses. Make sure they give them a preamble of what we were going to do and how we're going to take the patriarchal grip in the marriage ceremony. And I've also sealed couples with their children as well. That was really nice. And I was in charge of sealing rooms on Saturdays. And it was. It was a big commitment. And, yeah, I enjoyed doing it. It was really nice. But I think it. It's kind of a very. I think it was a very romantic idea, as well as being there for the polygamous situation. It was a very romantic kind of situation. That's how I would term it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:13] Julia is asking if you're aware of any bedrooms in the temple.

Martin Lock [02:17:20] No, not in London.

John Dehlin [02:17:21] Okay.

Martin Lock [02:17:22] There were sealing rooms that we never used very much. They were very small.

John Dehlin [02:17:26] Was there a holy of holies?

Martin Lock [02:17:27] No. I've been asked that question many times. I used to kid people along and say, yeah, it's behind that door there. Really? I said, yeah, yeah. What are they doing there? Then I said, well, we have all the operating equipment to run the films in there. We call that our holy of holies.

John Dehlin [02:17:42] So there is no holy of holies in a Mormon temple? I didn't know that. Well, I guess maybe Salt Lake.

Martin Lock [02:17:47] The only one I'm aware of, and I've been right outside it, is Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [02:17:50] Okay.

Martin Lock [02:17:50] I'm not aware that other temples would have a holy of holies.

John Dehlin [02:17:54] Is there a second anointing room in the temple?

Martin Lock [02:17:57] They would. I. I think they would use one of the smaller rooms. That's my thinking. We had. On one floor, we had four seating rooms. One was a large room for main Saturday weddings. After civil weddings, we wouldn't use that one too often. We'd keep that for Saturdays. The other three rooms we'd rotate. And then upstairs there was. I think there was three up there, seven rooms, and three very small rooms upstairs. I went there once for a ceiling that President Lowry performed for a girl from Ireland. Just the once. But they're very small rooms. You don't get many people in there.

John Dehlin [02:18:38] Nemo says he did some exploring when he was a temple worker. And he said that there's a tower, but the tower is full of dead flies is what he said.

Martin Lock [02:18:45] That's exactly right.

John Dehlin [02:18:46] Dust and dead flies.

Martin Lock [02:18:47] I've been up to the. As far as you can go, and it's full of dead flies. You need to wear a mask and a hat and a scarf.

John Dehlin [02:18:55] Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, this is something I'll come back to. The way this episode is going to end is with Martin telling us about how he lost his faith and how the church is dying in England or in the uk. What I'm observing in this interview is you talking about all these wonderful, amazing experiences you had as a Mormon, from your time as a, you know, you know, young man to the athletics, to your mission, to your service in the church, to the branches and your leadership and then the temple. You're basically saying two things we'll get to. It's not true for you anymore, and you think it might cause harm, but what you're also saying is you're telling me about a wonderful, beautiful life that was ordered and structured and informed by. By your devotion to and membership of the Mormon Church in the uk.

Martin Lock [02:19:53] Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. You couldn't have said that any better. I couldn't have said it any better. It was very fulfilling. It was interesting. I met loads of people. My wife and I loved people. That's part of our success in the temple. We reached out to people. I'll give you an example. One Friday evening, we had the ones where a steak attend, predominantly black people. My wife was hugging the sisters, coming in with a little kiss on the cheek. I was shaking the hands of the brethren and the American brother on the desk, the recommend desk, when they all came in, about 80 of them, he said, sister Locke, how can you do that? She said, do what? He said, kiss all those black people. And my wife said, well, it's like this, brother. They're God's children. And that shut him right up. He learned a lesson. They're God's children, and they were faithful people, led by a great stake president who's now the temple president. He's Ghanaian. From Africa. West Africa.

John Dehlin [02:21:01] Nice.

Martin Lock [02:21:01] Wonderful man.

John Dehlin [02:21:02] Nice.

Martin Lock [02:21:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:05] Okay. So you would have concluded your service as temple presidency member in what year?

Martin Lock [02:21:13] 2013.

John Dehlin [02:21:14] Okay, so that's 11 years ago.

Martin Lock [02:21:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:17] Okay. And let's. Anything else you want to say about. Oh, yes, I have one very important question right now. The. You know, the Mormon Church's missionary program, other than in Africa, is pretty much in decay and in demise because the Mormon product isn't selling like it Used to, except in Africa. As a general rule, the Mormon Church is in decline in most places of the world, again, other than Africa, some developing countries, and in Utah, only because of birth rate. But it's soon to be. It's almost flat and soon to be in decline. Even in Utah, there's wards and stakes closing every month in Salt Lake City. So, like, the church is in trouble. Where the Mormon Church is investing is in temples. And Russell M. Nelson has announced, I don't know, a couple hundred, several hundred temples just in his administration. And it's bizarre because historically, you've always needed. The church, has always required a certain level, a certain population strength before they would build a temple in a certain area. You build up the church, it gets strong in Houston. Okay, Houston gets a temple. You know, you build up the church in Guatemala. Okay, Guatemala gets a temple. But like, that all changed with Russell M. Nelson. He's like Oprah. It's like you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. Nelson's like, you get a temple, you get a temple. And he's building hundreds of them in places that don't have the membership even to support the staffing of a temple, let alone the attending of a temple. And nobody is fully sure why, but there's a lot of speculation. Here's the question I'm going to ask you as someone who served in the temple for most of your life and who sealed people in the temple and who was in a temple presidency, what is your opinion about what the Mormon Church gets out of having temples and encouraging temple attendance? What's the benefit to the Mormon Church that would compel it to spend so much money buying the real estate, building these temples, and then really, really pressuring the members to constantly go to the temples? What does the church get out of it, in your opinion? That's probably a big question.

Tithing, Temple Access, and Family Exclusion

Martin Lock [02:23:42] It is a big question.

John Dehlin [02:23:43] From what you saw.

Martin Lock [02:23:45] An interesting question.

John Dehlin [02:23:46] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:23:48] I think they're building these temples to try and demonstrate to an ailing church that there's growth and there isn't growth,

John Dehlin [02:24:00] but they have to believe they're getting something out of it, too. Okay, so you're saying if you build a lot of temples, it gives the impression that the church is strong and healthy and growing, but also, why are they telling members to spend so much time in the temple? What do you think the church gets out of pressuring members to be committed to attend the temple?

Martin Lock [02:24:19] Well, the answer is staring me in the face. It's because they get the tithing. What do you Mean, you've got to be a tithe payer to go to the temple. If you don't pay your tithing, you don't get to recommend. It creates a commitment for members. Okay, let's say they're going to announce a temple in architecture Ireland in the next conference. I think it's coming.

John Dehlin [02:24:41] By the way, they just announced Scotland, right?

Martin Lock [02:24:45] Yeah. So they're going to put one in Birmingham. Well, Birmingham's no good for the people in Cornwall. They've got almost the same distance to go to Birmingham as they have to London. That's not helping anybody. Certainly the people in Cornwall. It's a very rural area, very small. It's not helping them. And of course these people are dying out. The older generation are dying away. There's no younger generation. They move out of those rural areas to the big cities to get work. But the temples. Yeah, they're building temples because they want the members to. I think it's the last hope. And if they can get members to go to the temple, they get the tithing receipts. Because you have to be a tithe payer, which I disagree with. I look at the widow's mite principle. If you're doing your best, then you should better go to the temple. It's the same with the second endowment. I've known people very, very faithful in the church, been a ward clerk all their church life, kept the records bang up to date. Faithful, good home teacher, good temple attender. Are they ever going to get the second endowment? Probably not, because it's reserved generally for

John Dehlin [02:25:56] wealthy members of status who are connected, the top church leaders.

Martin Lock [02:26:00] It becomes a club. A little bit of nepotism involved. Well, a lot of nepotism here in Utah. It's easily recognizable. But people won't have that opportunity even if they've been very, very faithful and go to the temple every other week, which some people do. That's never going to happen. You know, I'm never going to be a stake president. I'm never going to be a bishop. Probably not. But why should they be? Why should they not have the same experience and the same blessing like Hans Mattson says. I'm hoping to see him in September in Spain. By the way, wonderful man. I know you've met him. But he says, why should I have that privilege? I'm no different. I'm no different than anybody else. In fact, I might be weaker than somebody else and he might be. You have to be a fly on the wall. But it breaks my heart really, because I don't see the church that I joined, I see a different church. I see betrayal. To faithful members like me, it breaks my heart. It breaks other people's heart. They find it really tough. My sister in law says, you're on a lonely journey, come out of the church. She was a faithful girl growing up in this large family, my wife's family, she's come out. The first vision was a big thing for her. I mean, I got a list of stuff here on my shelf. It broke me. It just broke me. I felt total, total betrayal of people I placed my trust in implicitly. And I said to my wife, you think it hurts me? It's killing me. My business partner said to me once, he said, there's three things I wish was right in my life. He broke his neck in an accident. He said, I wish I never broke my neck. He said, I wish my daughter could come out of the mental institution. And thirdly, he said, I wish the church was true. I wish it were true. He said, but it's not. And the Church has betrayed so many people with its hidden history.

John Dehlin [02:28:17] Let's jump to that in a second. Let me finish just talking about the temple really quick. So devil's advocate. So you say it's about tithing and commitment and control and projecting an image of success and of status. Yes, devil's advocate. In 2024, we know the Mormon Church has 150, $200 billion in just investments of stocks, of bonds, of real estate, of cash. And if you just do 7% returns on, let's just say 150 billion, that's $10 billion a year. That easily funds the operations of the Church. So what if somebody says to you, the church doesn't do temple stuff for the money, they don't need the money. They could literally, just through the interest on their assets, easily fund the operations of the Church without any of the members tithing. So it can't be about tithing because they've got more money than they could ever spend and that they even know how to spend now. So what would you say in response to that argument?

Martin Lock [02:29:18] Well, the Church always teach that tithing is not about money, it's about faith, which I disagree with.

John Dehlin [02:29:27] But from the Church's perspective, that's what

Martin Lock [02:29:29] you say all the time. It's about faith, brother. It's not about the money. We don't need the money. Well, if you don't need the money, don't worry about the money. You can't have it both ways.

John Dehlin [02:29:38] What I think I hear you saying, and it makes sense Like I said earlier, the more commitment the church requires of its members, the more devoted they are to the church. So making members pay the church, it's not that the church needs the money now, it's that it bonds the members faithfulness to the organization. Is that what you're saying?

Martin Lock [02:29:57] Yeah. We have a little member in our ward, a lady, sweet lady, a little bit older than me, joined the church many years ago and she'd never been to the temple to go inside. And people say to me, oh, that would never suit her. She wouldn't understand it. Waste of time. I say, hang on a minute. It's never a waste of time. Whether she understands it or not. She is entitled to the experience of feeling something. But she's reliant on the state for income to support herself. But it could be made available. We can make it available for her. You know, I've helped people out in the past and made it available to do things in the church. Why should that lady be deprived of that blessing in her life? When people go at the stand and fast and testimony and talk about the temple and talk about ceilings and doing this for their dead ancestors. And this lady sits next to me in church and she says, I can never do that. I'm on state handout, smarting. I could never get a recommend because I don't pay tithing. And you can't pay tithing when you're getting state benefits. They catch up on you. Why are you giving that money to that charity? We'll reduce your income because of that is sad. It's very sad. I think it's criminal, you know, that that person can't enjoy that blessing and talk about it like everybody else talks about it and be included. But there's a lot of people like that struggle. There's a lot of poverty, Mormons in the British Isles that are, you know, on the threshold in life. You know, I think it's a criminal, it's a crime that we're ignoring that possibility for that individual to have a little bit of satisfaction that she can say, yeah, I've been to the temple, it was lovely. I didn't understand much, but I felt something. That's all. That's all it takes. And I've seen people go to the temple that are blind, deaf, aged, and they just love being there, just to be there. I've assisted people in the temple, people that are in wheelchairs. I've looked after them, seen them all the way through. That was my job. And deaf people fall into my arms when they come through the veil. Did you understand that today? Yes, I understood everything today. What a blessing it's been for me today. And she said that falling into my arms through the veil. A deaf person. Great moment. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:48] What are your thoughts on the fact that family members and friends who aren't faithful members can often be excluded from marriage, marriages or wedding ceremonies? Like a. A non member father can't attend his own Mormon daughter's wedding in the temple and would be excluded unless he joined the church and paid tithing. And siblings can't even see their own siblings get married if they're too young. Yes, because you have to have done your endowments to witness. What do you think about exclusion from temple weddings?

Martin Lock [02:33:23] I don't like it in a nutshell. I think it's. I think the church has created. Created something that's. They've created a problem in itself. This secret marriage. It's a secret marriage and it disenfranchises the family from it. I don't think it's right. I'm glad in a way that we have a civil marriage first in our country, that the bride can wear something nice, what she wants to wear. Because when they go in the temple, sometimes they've got to change the dress and they can keep it nice. A wedding, of course they can. I got nothing against a civil marriage. It's lawful and everybody can be there and everybody can participate. They can have fun, a fun time together, a nice time, a sacred time. And the temple marriage kind of spoils all that for people when they're not in the culture. I know they have the problems here, but in the culture here, most of the family are members. It's a little bit easier.

John Dehlin [02:34:36] Less and less.

Martin Lock [02:34:37] Less and less. I would agree with you.

John Dehlin [02:34:39] Yeah, yeah. What do you think about. About just this idea of proxy work for the dead, that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Mormons all across the world, especially ones that are older, 60 and above retired, are spending day after day after day

Martin Lock [02:35:00] or

John Dehlin [02:35:01] younger people just temple service, doing washings and anointings for the dead, over and over and over again. Baptisms for the dead, over and over and over and over again. Endowments for the dead, over and over and over and over and over again. Instead of getting water to people who don't have clean water, feeding the hungry who are living right now in the world, clothing, the naked, teaching literacy in places where there aren't literacy, all the ways that Mormons could spend their lives, their time, doing what Jesus taught, which is serving humanity, instead, tens to hundreds of thousands of Mormons are spending infinite hours almost, it seems, doing dead ordinance work for dead people who lived a long time ago under the idea that these dead people won't be able to get to heaven unless Mormons spend a gazillion hours doing these dead temple ordinances. What do you think about all that now?

Martin Lock [02:36:05] Well, I. I'm just blown away with it all now, really, because I'd like to see them do more for the living than the dead. All those things you just mentioned are on my will, be on my bucket list. They should be doing that in places, building universities, schools, libraries, water, wheelchairs, whatever they can do to help mankind, bless mankind. Surely that's the object of our tithe and offerings, is to bless mankind. I always used to like to think that my offerings were helping somebody somewhere. I still donate to two children in Ethiopia. We've done it for years because Aaron went there, volunteered, and he said, there's a need there, dad. Sometimes he would say to me, I've raised this much for this family. Would you like to make a donation? I said, I'll double whatever you've done, I'll double it. And we've always been generous in that area. So, yes, I would like to see the church do a lot more with its money. I mean, what would Jesus do? What did he say to the rich young man? I used to use that quote with the new endowments in the temple. He said, go and give your money to the poor. He said, what should I do for my youth? Up. I kept all the commandments, what else should I do? He said, go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor. And what happened to the young man? He walked away.

John Dehlin [02:37:27] He bailed?

Martin Lock [02:37:28] Yeah. He couldn't do it. I don't think Jesus was asking him to give all his money, but give a portion of it, do something useful. That's the message. And he walked away sorrowful. And he was an influential man. He could have done something great in the church. And I think that's the same with our church today. I think we can do a lot more with our time and effort than what we do on this work for the dead. I don't think that work for the dead is necessary. I believe we talk about this wonderful Jesus in the Mormon Church. The Mormon Jesus is the great healer. He's the great protector. He knows you by name. He's going to do all this for you in the next life. Don't worry, it's all going to be taken care of. He's going to Take up the slack. He's going to do this. Well, if he can do all that, and I'm sure he can, then he can take care of all those who've gone on without hearing the gospel in this life. It can all be done miraculously in the next life.

John Dehlin [02:38:21] If Jesus can die for our sins, Jesus can make it right that we don't need to get a Mormon baptism to make it to heaven. Right?

Martin Lock [02:38:27] Correct. Absolutely correct.

John Dehlin [02:38:29] Which makes Mormon temple work a catastrophic waste of time.

Martin Lock [02:38:32] Nailed it. Yeah, nailed it, John.

John Dehlin [02:38:34] I should have phrase that as a question. Does that make Mormon temple work a catastrophic waste of time, Martin?

Faith Crisis and Leaving the Church

Martin Lock [02:38:41] Yeah, it does.

John Dehlin [02:38:43] And yet. And yet I'm gonna. I'm gonna shock you again, Martin. That's what made you want to join the church is the teachings about proxy work for the dead. That's what you liked about it back then. Yeah. What do you think? How do you. How do you reconcile that, that that's what brought you to the church?

Martin Lock [02:39:01] Well, I was a young man then. I was quite vulnerable. This was all new to me. And I saw that as, yeah, that's a good idea. That's fair. In my estimation, as other churches were teaching heaven and hell. I don't even believe that anymore. Yeah, I just come to a time in my life which I thought, John, I would never reach in my time of life. I remember working at British Aerospace when I was 35, 36 years of age, and a very wise man came up to me once. They all knew I was a member of the church and I was devout. They all knew that because I worked there before my mission and came back there. And he said to me one day, he said, when you get to the age of 40, 50, he said, you'll have a different overview of religion and Christianity. And I went, nah, nah, not with me. Not with Martin Locke. When I do something, I'm all in. I'm all in for life.

John Dehlin [02:40:01] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:40:02] And I got hit between the ice when I discovered the history of the Church.

John Dehlin [02:40:07] How did it start? So how did your truth crisis, as you like to call it, with Mormon. With the Mormon Church. Where did it begin?

Martin Lock [02:40:14] Well, like I said, I had a few things on the back burner. Polygamy? Yeah, polygamy. Temple endowment, this Masonic interest. I read loads of books at the time about the Knights Templar to see if I could find anything with them with ceremonies, rituals, etc. I tried to study a little bit about masons, but it was about two and a half years ago during COVID Bit more time on my hands.

John Dehlin [02:40:45] You're in your early 70s?

Martin Lock [02:40:46] Yeah. And your wife's still alive? Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:49] Okay.

Martin Lock [02:40:49] Very much so. And we've had this disease of motor neuron, Lou Gehrig's disease. And she took everything, you know, really well. And I just. One day I was flipping around and I just happened to get YouTube. I'm not very technically inclined with all the social media stuff, and I just happened to flip onto a YouTube and I learned about this polygamy. And I don't know who was presenting it. It might have been Grant Palmer or rfm, something like that, maybe Sandra Tanner. And I looked at, I thought they're talking about. They're talking about polyandry. What's polyandry? And when I found out about it.

John Dehlin [02:41:34] So in your early 70s, you had never heard that term? No, no. 70 years as a Mormon.

Martin Lock [02:41:41] 50 years.

John Dehlin [02:41:42] 50 years as a Mormon. 70 years.

Martin Lock [02:41:43] Never heard about.

John Dehlin [02:41:45] Never heard the word polyandry. Tell our listeners and viewers what that word means.

Martin Lock [02:41:48] Well, I discovered it was where Joseph Smith was marrying or being sealed to women that were already married with husbands. And I got to learn after Wawa, if it's all about a dynasty, why don't you marry the men anyway? Just marry the men? No, it had to be a woman, for obvious reasons. Of course it became, in my opinion, it was sexual. I think we have proof on that. Anyway. Some would deny it, but I was disgusted with that. Really disgusted with it. And I then started to probe then and the avenues of the church history opened up to me. And I learned. Well, I learned about the endowment ceremony. The second anointing bothered me. I learned about the first vision.

John Dehlin [02:42:42] What about it?

Martin Lock [02:42:43] Well, my sister in law was. That's what turned her off. Well, I learned through Paul Cheeseman's dissertation at BYU that he discovered that the first vision recorded, nobody knew about it until 1832, 1833 time period. And he said in there he went to get a remission of his sins and he met the Redeemer, described the Redeemer, the messenger, as the Redeemer. And we would associate that being the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I was shocked at that. And then I learned that.

John Dehlin [02:43:16] Because you had been taught a different story.

Martin Lock [02:43:17] Of course I was taught the 1838 version. I didn't know the church was in apostate condition then, but it was a big apostate condition. And he had to kind of regurgitate his presence as this wonderful prophet, seer and revelator leader because he was losing the plot. And he was accused as a fallen prophet. So he had to reinvent himself and reinvent the Revelations and retrofit Revelations. And it became too. The Revelations became too glorious and too unique and too grandiose. And I mean, you know, the Bible talks about John wanting to stay on the earth one person. And Jesus allowed that. Not the Mormon Jesus. He allows three to stay on the earth. Everything's bigger and better. And I just delved more and more. And then I got involved with your series. Very much so. Loved your series.

John Dehlin [02:44:13] The LDS discussion series.

Martin Lock [02:44:15] Yeah, Great series. Followed that, checked it out, followed it through. Listened to RFM and Bill. Real Sandra Tanner about Nemo the Mormon. Well, good old Nemo. Yeah. Getting involved with him now. More so lately.

John Dehlin [02:44:32] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:44:33] And all. All the 21st century saints. Yep. Love them. I knew Peter Bleakley's parents quite well. The Bleakley family are a big family from Northern Ireland. The granddaddy was a doctor. Dr. Bleakley. Big family, big presence in Ireland and in England. And so, yeah, I've got involved in it. I. For two and a half years, solid John. Every evening when I went to bed, switch it on, learn. Oh, yeah, I read about that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:45:03] Read the list. You had a list. You were reading. Go ahead, do the list.

Martin Lock [02:45:06] Well, Joseph Smith and the Peep Stone.

John Dehlin [02:45:08] Oh, okay. What about it?

Martin Lock [02:45:09] That's a big one. That is a stone in the hat. I said to a brother in the ward recently, I said, don't look out the window, don't look at your shoes, look at me. You're concerned about my truth crisis. I want to tell you just one thing. Do you tell me how the Book of Mormon was translated by the witness statements? Tell me what your version is. Yeah, quite easy, sir. Joseph was sat at a table, a screen between him and one of the scribes. That's a bit unusual, Tony, you know, very unusual. That.

John Dehlin [02:45:39] Can't see him.

Martin Lock [02:45:40] I found that really weird. And then he said, yeah, and then the plates were on the table. And he pursued the plates and did the translation. Ah, so you've never heard about the rock in the hat? He went, rock in the hat. What was that about then? This is a man been in the church 40 years. I never heard about it until two and a half years ago.

John Dehlin [02:45:58] In your 70s.

Martin Lock [02:45:59] In my 70s. A rock in a hat. For goodness sake. What are we talking about here? Black magic? Occult? So I got into that. I learned about that. I read all the witness statements. Emma Smith, well, I moved the plates, but I never saw them. She saw them. She lifted up that cloth. She's not an idiot or a fool. But she stopped. She'd lie for her husband all the time. They're both good liars.

John Dehlin [02:46:22] Actually, she denied living later, after he died, that he had ever practiced polygamy.

Martin Lock [02:46:26] Of course he did.

John Dehlin [02:46:26] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:46:27] Book of Mormon translation.

John Dehlin [02:46:29] What about it?

Martin Lock [02:46:30] 19th century evangelical novel. What was going on in his time, time frame? The gaddy Anton robbers. Well, that's about Mike Mason's secret combinations. I don't know what they're going to handle in Sunday school when they come to that one, but they'll put a spin on it. Great and abominable church. The. The black skin of the American Indians. Well, you know, they didn't have the materials to build a temple like Solomon. But the verse before says, but we had gold, silver and precious metals, steel and iron. But they didn't have the materials to build it like Solomon's temple. Can't get my head around that one. The conversion of Alma in there. Well, it goes on. The plagiarism and anachronisms. Anachronisms.

John Dehlin [02:47:14] Why are Native Americans before Jesus's birth Christian? Like that's just a basic problem with

Martin Lock [02:47:21] the Book of Mormon. That came to me time and time again. I thought, how can they have the word Jesus in Old Testament time frame? It's a Greek word of Christos. They didn't have the Greek language there. They should have had Hebrew anyway. Not reformed Egyptian. That doesn't exist. Book of Abraham. Another one. Wow, that was a biggie. Now, I joined the church in 67 when all that was going on, but did I hear it in Britain? Not a dicky bird, nothing. So Book of Abraham, big one. Restoration of priesthood. Retrofitting in, of course, John. John, David. David Whitmer never knew a thing about priesthood. In 1834, I think he was saying

John Dehlin [02:48:00] that Melchizedek priestess up to Joseph's, claiming that that never happened.

Martin Lock [02:48:03] Well.

John Dehlin [02:48:04] And that's one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

Martin Lock [02:48:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:48:06] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:48:06] Well, people don't know all the stories of the three witnesses, unfortunately.

John Dehlin [02:48:10] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:48:10] If you read your history, you can find out about it. Was there anything else? A blood atonement was another one. Council of 50 and the day. The great story of the Norvo Expositor, William Law. I mean, and he's an Ulsterman from Ireland. What a connection. My hero. I love William Law for what he did. He stood up. He stood up to him. And all was going on underhanded. It was corrupt. And people, when they speak to me, I put it in a nutshell. I say Joseph was a liar to Emma. He told lies to the church and he told lies to the world. And if you got that all in one to start with, then everything else follows. It was totally corrupt. He just took money off people. He cheated people left, right and center. He got wealthy people around him, surrounded him, and whenever things got wrong, he got rid of them. When anything went wrong, he got rid of them and he just cast them out, excommunicated them, didn't want them anymore. He just wanted yes men around him. And I'm just looking forward to the day when the church may finally open up. The. The clerical records of W.W. phelps. Looking forward to that. And the minutes of the Council of 50 Nauvoo Minutes. I'd like look forward to looking at that, seeing that. I think that will tell a big story. It will add to the corruption in the lies. And I think the church is now, with the coming of the Internet, I think they had it all buttoned down and now the lid's blown off and I can't see it. I think the church will always be there because of the money, but I don't think it will. I just don't think it will develop. I think it will go the other way.

John Dehlin [02:50:08] What was it like for. You've referred to this already earlier in the episode. What was it like to be a convert at 20, to have 50amazing years as a Mormon? You found the love of your life through the church, had all these amazing experiences leading the church, growing the church, raising your kids in the church, serving in the church. Clearly your life was blessed and clearly you benefited from your church membership. Give 50 years of your life, you're in your 70s, and then for the first time, give. You're learning the truth, the facts about the church's origins, and very problematic, disturbing facts. What was that like for you in your early 70s?

Martin Lock [02:50:57] Totally devastating. Completely devastating. It's. It's like a romance. It broke up deep in my heart. I felt. I felt. I felt so betrayed, so disappointed that it was not true anymore. It was like a probably. I mean, I'd never been divorced, so I can't. I've never experienced that. Would never. That was never on our lips, Jan and I, but I feel divorced from the church. I feel I've been robbed of my integrity, my. Allegiance to a cause. But I don't see anything being fulfilled in the church either. I don't see this gathering to Jackson county, the temple being built there, and don't see some of these prophecies that were made being fulfilled.

John Dehlin [02:52:04] But stick with your. Your feelings. Like. Like. And and there's just a devil's advocate. You had an amazing life so far. And, and you know, Jesus said, by their fruits you shall know them. The fruits of the Mormon Church in the uk. You just, you just spent two and a half hours, almost three, telling us the amazing fruits of the Mormon Church in the UK and in your life. So what if someone were to say to you, we don't understand the history, we don't know for sure what happened. And none of those are flecks of history. They don't matter. What matters? The fruit. You felt, the spirit. You have tasted the fruit, you've benefited from the fruit. That's what matters. Don't let silly history take you away from what you know was a super positive thing in your life and in the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of others. It's the fruit that matters. Don't let the other stuff get you off track. Be grateful, be grateful for the amazing role the Mormon Church had in your life.

Martin Lock [02:53:14] But you. That's exactly right. But you can't go on. Without the truth and the history of the church. You just can't go on believing in that church if it doesn't tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And it's not taught the truth. The Book of Mormon is not the word of God. It paints a nice picture because it teaches some nice things about Jesus and that's attractive to people because it sounds biblical. But the book was there as a vehicle for Joseph Smith to get this prestigious position as a spiritual prophet, seer, leader. And I believe he did some awful things. I believe he was a very cruel man. I wouldn't want to be around him with my wife. I'd be scared to death. And I can't trust the church like I used to. I thoroughly believed in the leadership of the church at one time. I believed in those men. I've met a few of them over the years when we had chance to meet them, but I just see it now as a very. It's not progress. The church is not progressing, it's decreasing. It's going the other way. And I've had to ask myself the question, why is that? Why? Why don't people in England convert to the church? Why is it, Are they too intellectual? Are they too prideful? Is pride there? Do they not need God because they can do it all themselves? Are they well off? Are they influential? What is it that stops them? I believe when they have an experience with the missionaries about the Mormons, they pick the phone up in five Minutes to today and they can read all about it. Like I said to my friend the other day, go away and Google Seer Stone, it might educate you. Now did he do that? I don't know. I've not been around to ask him. But you know, I like to follow the truth. You know, I look at the little, the Methodist faith, they don't make any truth claims. They just say, we believe in Jesus, we follow the Bible as best we can and we're happy and we've got a relationship with Jesus, we've got a relationship to a Salvik message and that's good enough for me and for them and we're very happy and we don't need to make any truth claims or say we have all the truth, you know, we have a parcel of it, a partial truth, I guess. And they're happy because they have a relationship. It's like a Baptist or a Presbyterian.

Reflecting on a Life Devoted to Mormonism

John Dehlin [02:55:51] What about authority? Like the church would say its primary value is that Jesus sanctioned our ordinances. But all the ordinances, baptism, marriage and other churches, they don't count because they don't have God's stamp of authority.

Martin Lock [02:56:07] Well, you can challenge authority in the LDS Church, of course, because there's only two guys there to talk about it.

John Dehlin [02:56:15] You mean Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowder.

Martin Lock [02:56:16] Cowdery, yeah. And Joseph on his own with the first vision, the Book of Mormon that we've never seen, so called, handed back the golden plates. Yeah. Then you've got the 116 pages missing. That's another one. So it goes on. But I think a Methodist, for example, would say, well, you know, I have a relationship with Jesus, I'm doing the best I can. And I don't think the church ever did finish on the earth because the Holy Spirit was sent and they believe they have the Holy Spirit and it gives them a conviction. And in their eyes they have an honest conviction and they're not too concerned about authority as such. For baptism, they might not find that essential because they find, you know, their belief is essential. And Jesus sometimes said, well, you know, if you have faith in me, I've made you whole. Don't talk about a baptism, doesn't talk about a belief. He says, if you've got a belief in me, in me, the Savior. And I think it's got to be more simple Christlike faith than what the LDS Church put out there. It's all about works. It's all about, after all, you can do. Well, how do you define all you can do? How do you define you can't Define it.

John Dehlin [02:57:36] It's the life you lived for 50 years. That's what all you can do is.

Martin Lock [02:57:39] Was it. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:57:42] No, seriously, you lived it for 50 years. You know what it is? You did it and it made you a good guy and it made. It created a great family.

Martin Lock [02:57:49] But I also believe I'm saved by grace, as Paul quoted.

John Dehlin [02:57:52] Yeah.

Martin Lock [02:57:53] And I've been in meetings and people that have been in a church a long time and say, what is grace? And so I put my hand up and I. And I tell them, I'll explain what grace is to you. It's an invitation of the enabling power of Christ that's available for you, but it's his invitation to come unto him, to believe in him. Follow me. I am the bread of life. I am the truth of life. I am the way, the truth and the life. And no man cometh unto me but by the Father and nobody else. By the Father. It's not by Joseph Smith, as Brigham Young said, it's by the Father. And I believe that. I don't believe you have to go through anybody or have to have a handshake or know a password or pay 10%. Or pay 10%. His grace is sufficient for all men. He is the healer. He is the God of miracles. He is at the door. He is the door to the sheepfold. And we have to come through him. And therefore we don't need temple rituals and temple obligations. I see it all now quite clearly, and I believe I can think clearly now. I am free of all this ritual and works. And I have a relationship with my brother. Finally, I have a relationship with the friends I used to have and the people I've neglected and some of my immediate family. My uncle I look after in a nursing home I haven't seen for years and years. And I've related to my cousins, my long lost cousins. So I'm doing things now that I've neglected for other things. And I felt very guilty about that. I've had to apologize to people that I've neglected them. And they say, well, don't worry about it. It's in the past. So I try to make it up to them now. I talk to my brother every other day on the phone. I go and visit him. He welcomes me to his home. Come and stay. Come and stay and spend some time with me. So it's wonderful. I couldn't do that in the past. And that's a sad thing, I suppose, the other side of the coin, the other things get sacrificed for Your time commitment in the church.

John Dehlin [03:00:16] Yeah. You spend a lot of your life serving, and if this is the only life you get, then that time could have been spent in other ways.

Martin Lock [03:00:26] I don't regret being a member of the church because it gave me those blessings in my life, but I could have got those blessings somewhere else with that kind of service. I just feel that I can't carry on. I can't attend a sacrament meeting and hear things that I don't agree with. This year they're teaching the Book of Mormon. I can't go into that class. I would have to keep my mouth really zipped, otherwise I'd cause a disturbance and then probably I'd finish up having a high council disciplinary. You know, like my friend said, do you want to leave the church, go out fighting, or do you want to have your name removed or do you have nuisance value by being a member? Big decision, but I'll probably have my name removed eventually. Sooner than later. I don't want to go to church and upset someone and start saying, well, I don't believe that. Have you considered this? Have you read this? Because you get these filthy looks and then you have the presiding priesthood breathing down your neck. Could you be quiet in the next lesson, please, Brother Locke? I find that hard to do. Truth is truth, isn't it? I thought the LDS Church believed in truth. A lot of lies told in the history of the Church. A lot of lies, a lot of subterfugion going on, bad deals. And it just sickens me, makes my heart bleed. I never thought I'd ever get to this. Never. My wife took it pretty hard when I told her, you know, and I said, I have to stick to my conscience, Jan. I can't go on accepting this stuff that's taught from the pulpit in lessons. It's difficult. It's so difficult. And I've met other people the same. They find it so hard, you know, we shed tears over it. It's so difficult. My brother in law is a bishop in Porterdown in Ireland. He's a good guy, but him and his wife say, well, we found Christ in the church and that's all we're interested in. We're not interested in anything else. I said, but you can't do that. You have to conduct interviews. The temple recommend depends on your faith in Joseph Smith and the current leadership of the church and the restoration prophet seers and revelators. You can't do that in the Book of Mormon. Yeah, you can't do it. You got to come to some conclusion over it. And he tried to grill my sister in law a couple of years ago in Ireland. He was very heavy with her. I said, rob, you know, back off a little bit. You know, she's made her decision. She has a faith in Jesus. I know where you're coming from. I know you have a great faith in Christ and I admire you for that. But I also have faith in Christ and you know, he was disappointed in me, but he still, you know, we still have a good relationship. I love him. He's ill with cancer at the moment and I do love him dearly. And my intention is to get over there when I get home and see him. I love all her family. They're wonderful people. Most of them have left the church.

John Dehlin [03:03:49] So you don't regret giving your life, most of your life to the church? You don't regret it?

Martin Lock [03:03:56] No, I think it was. I think it was. It was a good contribution to society. Met my wife through it. I enjoyed my mission. No, I don't think there's a regret there. I just have a regret now that I found these things out. And it saddens me greatly. Does sadden me.

John Dehlin [03:04:21] So you don't wish you had never been Mormon or that you joined the church? You wish you hadn't learned the truth about the church? Is that what you said?

Martin Lock [03:04:29] That's what I'm saying, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:30] So you're not happier now?

Martin Lock [03:04:34] I'm happy that I know I have a conscience and I can make a clear decision. I'm happy now. I am. What's the word I'm looking for? Complete. I feel relaxed. I can think more for myself. I can feel free to make decisions outside of the church. I can pursue other avenues of interest. You know, I had a place in Spain and I had a trailer. And when I bought the trailer for my wife, mainly to make her happy, she always wanted a caravan. I thought, well, when are we going to have time to use it? You know, that was difficult because of commitment to the church. So, yeah, it was. Yeah, I enjoyed it overall. But feel now I'm free. I am free. I am free to follow the New Testament Jesus that I've always tried to learn about. So I like listening to Bart Ehrman, theologians. Great man, great mind. Opens up avenues for me I never thought of before. And I can develop my mind in new avenues of spirituality. Not so much religion, but spirituality.

John Dehlin [03:05:57] Yeah, sometimes ex Mormons end up deconstructing the Bible just like they deconstructed the Book of Mormon. Have you been through that?

Martin Lock [03:06:04] Yeah, I Do. Yeah. I'm interested to know a bit more about Jewish history, tradition, culture, language, because I'm very ignorant. I don't know a lot about that. I know some of it. I know a little bit about ancient Israel and the law of Moses and the Ark of the Covenant and the ups and downs of their righteous behavior or unrighteous behavior and how it was all directed to come in the fulfillment of Christ. He fulfilled the law. Not according to LDS theology he didn't. But in my opinion, he fulfilled the law. He is the law and the prophets. So I'm learning those avenues now and it's interesting and it's fulfilling and I realize that it's important to maintain a relationship to Christ. I don't understand the Holy Ghost too much. I find that confusing. People say, oh boy. I find out through the spirit. Well, I think you mean your intellect. You know, God's given you an intellect and you use the intellect. Yeah. So

Decline of the Church in the UK

John Dehlin [03:07:17] really quickly, I don't know that members of the LDS Church here in the United States know how bad things are for the church in the UK and the extent to which the LDS church in the UK is hemorrhaging and or dying. Do you want to paint a picture? You know, you were a witness to the incredible growth. Do you want to quickly paint a picture of the church's demise in the uk?

Martin Lock [03:07:45] Well, I got a very good friend up in London who's in the same position I am. He's been a member since 1965. His ward recently was closed and he built that ward. He feels very embittered about that because he says it's difficult for the elderly members to move around on buses in the London area. He recently went to a conference where they closed down the Maidstone stake, which usually gets 750 plus members there. And Elder Boone was at that conference and this friend said to me, he said, well, don't worry about the stake being closed. Oh, there was only 250 in attendance, by the way. He said, don't worry about the stake being closed. In four years time you'll be back here. Well, I had another guy reach out to me from Gloucester, a good member. And he was asking how I was and how I was feeling. And because the word's out over there, most people know it goes through the grapevine very quickly. I said to him, I said, my friend in London informs me there's only 13% activity in the church in the London area. And he said, well, let me tell you something, it's 9.6%.

John Dehlin [03:08:56] So less than 1 of 10 members of the church that the church claims in the UK or at least in London, are actually attending yourself identifying as Mormon. Yeah, 90% of the Mormons in London are out of the church.

Martin Lock [03:09:12] Yeah, well, just don't attend. Yeah, of course, the, I think what happens in, in Britain, vulnerable people, I'm saying, would, would have the, the missionaries in. They like, they like the, the Americans coming to their home. It's a novelty. Where are you from? Oh, I'm from St. George, Utah. Where's that? Oh, it's down in the desert and it's very hot and blah. They get to know them and get to know their personalities. They become friends and they might have them around for dinner and then they have another discussion and eventually they get the commitment, well, would you like to be baptized if you know these things are true? And they finish up getting baptized for argument's sake, and the missionaries get moved and they never come out again. They just, sometimes they never even go to church after their baptism. I've learned of those experiences where people. Young boy was baptized at 8 with his family and he's now 58 and never went to church and doesn't even know anything about the church, don't know who's who in the church. And his wife would say, no, he's not a member. I said, well, according to our records, he is. And she gets him on the phone and says, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I was baptized at 8 but never went out to church. And that's commonplace. So that happened a lot. And the modern member, with an intelligent person, you might say, would pick up the phone and in five minutes would know about the church in history. We'll get onto websites, be directed to websites, learn about it and say, well, I don't think I want them back, dear. I've learned a few things I don't think you'd like to hear about, you know. And. Oh, what's that, dear? Well, you know, you know, they used to practice more than one wife and practice this and I'm not very happy with that. They're mature enough and intelligent enough to make a decision and say, no, I don't really want that. It's very high demand. Where's the church? Oh, it's 10 miles away or something, you know, and we live out here in the country or whatever. It puts them off a little bit. They just fade away. And the missionaries in England are not having much success. They do a lot of stuff on Facebook. We never see them on the streets, never, hardly ever Bump into them. So yeah, it's dying in England. I did an estimate once I got it dead right. I estimated as a good estimate of 30,000 between 28 and 32,000 people active. And there's 30,000 active in Britain, I believe, out of a membership of about 186. 188,000 people. A lot of them are lost file, by the way. You can't find them. They just move away and don't leave any forwarding address, nothing at all. It's embarrassing when you go out to find them and you meet people that are now living in the house that are not members of the church. Well, why are you doing this? We don't know where they live and we think they moved down south somewhere. The whole exercise, you waste a lot of time. There's a lot of wasted time out there with people. You go and see less active members and they say, no, the church is okay. Keep me on the records. But I'm not interested. Don't bother me. I'm okay. I'm very happy. Yeah, family's doing well. I haven't been out of church for 30, 40 years. Don't bother me. Get a lot of that. Sad, but. And you get some good people that have given up on the church now for all these reasons. Today they've given up. They feel same way. Things have been whitewashed. We don't discuss these things. You're not supposed to read anything. It was just called anti Mormon literature. And I had a brother come up to me and he said, what's all this anti Mormon literature you've been reading? I said, I don't read any anti Mormon literature. But I tell you what I do read. I do read church history and I discover things and I try and qualify it. And that's what I've done. I've qualified it. And it's ripped me apart, John, with my wife, it ripped me apart. And it's hard to handle as someone who's enjoyed it all his life and believed in it and sustain the leadership. And I've sustained my leadership locally when my children have been disfellowshipped, rightly or wrongly. But they had terrible treatment from priesthood leadership, in my opinion. And I still sustain them. And I was wrong to do that. I should have made a. Made a case for them. How dare you speak to my daughter in the tone you spoke to her, you know, but I didn't. So two of my daughters have had their names removed and so is my youngest son. And my wife and I, we knew nothing about that. Nothing about it.

John Dehlin [03:13:55] But he. They preceded your truth crisis.

Martin Lock [03:13:59] Yes, they did.

John Dehlin [03:14:00] Okay.

Martin Lock [03:14:01] And Aaron, my eldest son, came over to England about two years ago this month. And he turned to me in the car. His wife was in another car with my daughter. And he turned to me and he said, dad, he said, I just want you to know I'm. I'm not very okay with the church. I have some issues. And I said, well, good for you, son, because you're talking to someone with the same problems. I think he was very relieved to know that. And we were on the same wavelength. And I felt confident I wasn't an idiot. I had enough common sense, enough intellectual, to discover what I've discovered and evaluate it all in a reasonable situation. And from. Not all, not all from an intellectual point of view, but from a view of reasoning of my own mind and bearing the truth on the table. Let's discuss the Book of Mormon. Let's see where the flaws are. Let's see what. What I'm not happy with there. And let's see if I can get an explanation, but no one can give me one. I've met with the stake president and the bishop, and they just can't help me.

John Dehlin [03:15:15] Are you worried by doing this interview you could be disciplined, maybe excommunicated?

Martin Lock [03:15:21] I. I know. I'm not bothered about that. I. I would only. Only ever explain the truth. Truth is all I'm interested in. And I just felt. I felt let down and deceived, and I'd have to stand by that, and I'd have to prove that in a defense, which I would do. I would do exactly what Bill Ruhl did. Tell the truth.

John Dehlin [03:15:42] Do you think there's anything the Church could do to turn it around and to get things healthy and growing again? In your opinion, the church comes to you and says, martin, Martin Locke, help us out. We want to turn things around and get things positive, healthy and growing. What advice would you give the church?

Martin Lock [03:16:02] The church would have to get rid of all their truth claims. They'd have to. What are they going to do? They'd have to say, yeah, the Book of Abraham's not. Not true. Not written by the hand of Abraham. It's not true. Get rid of section 132 and the doctrine and Covenants.

John Dehlin [03:16:18] What about the Book of Mormon?

Martin Lock [03:16:19] Yeah, they have to get rid of that, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not. Not true. Scripture. Scripture. It's not scripture. Certainly not ancient. It's just a Modern mindful of 19th century New England evangelical rhyme plagiarized. Greatly plagiarized. I mean, you can't have their word for word in there. Almost thousands of words straight out of the New Testament, which also is a translation, as we know.

John Dehlin [03:16:42] And the Old Testament.

Martin Lock [03:16:42] Yeah. You know, and then. Yeah, there's just so much stuff that's not right.

John Dehlin [03:16:47] What about the claim that Russell M. Nelson is God's prophet on the earth and he talks to God and Jesus?

Martin Lock [03:16:53] No, don't believe that for a minute. He's a nice man. To the LDS people. I think he's a good man. But no, he's not a seer. He doesn't give us any advice how to get ready for the millennium or epidemics.

John Dehlin [03:17:09] And yeah, he does. He says, go to the temple. Go off it. Forgot.

Martin Lock [03:17:12] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:17:14] Would you. What would you tell the church about temple work?

Martin Lock [03:17:17] I'll say it's a waste of time.

John Dehlin [03:17:20] And money.

Martin Lock [03:17:21] And money.

John Dehlin [03:17:22] Yeah.

Martin Lock [03:17:23] It's a lovely building. It looks nice from the road.

John Dehlin [03:17:29] Bright and shiny.

Martin Lock [03:17:29] Bright and shiny. And lights up at night. Oh, yeah, that's all lovely, but that's the picture they paint to the public. Yeah. So. No, don't agree with it at all. It's got no place for me.

John Dehlin [03:17:46] And yet will the world be. Let's say the Mormon Church disappears. Will the world be better off? Will the, you know, will the Martin Locks of the world have a better framework and structure to build themselves and to build their family? I mean, is the world better off, in your opinion, without the Mormon Church, given all the good that it's delivered to you and your family?

Martin Lock [03:18:10] You can find good in any worthwhile organization, whatever you put your hand or your mind to. You can do good. You can be part of good. It's all about being informed. It's no good being informed about a truth claim which is not true. That's no good to anybody.

John Dehlin [03:18:31] But what if it makes. Gives you a happy, healthy life? Even if it's not true, it's like a myth. It's a set of beliefs, of myths, of heroes, of morals, of values, of ethics that produce happy, healthy individuals and families.

Martin Lock [03:18:48] But you can't build it on a lie, John. It's got to be built on a foundation of truth. And it's got to be. You've got to have some facts and some evidence. The LDS Church doesn't have that. Yes, it has all those good things, those qualities, but that can be found in lots of organizations, in lots of communities. You can belong to a community and you can develop those things and have community and have a healthy lifestyle. There's lots of people, they like their lives to be a bit private and they find happiness in a private, quiet moments of their lives. Some people like to be around a lot of people. I was kind of like that, enjoyed being around good people. And the members of the LDS Church are wonderful people. I love them. I love the people I've been with these last four weeks. Wonderful people, people that respect me as a missionary. Oh, I remember when you were the AP and we all looked up to you being the English guy, you know, and, and I didn't look at it like that. I looked at just, I was, I felt like I was just a normal everyday missionary. I didn't want to be the big boss in the mission as some APs used to be and other missionaries would bow down, would hero worship them. That wasn't for me. I just wanted to be on their side of the ballpark, not the other side. I just, you know, get on and do the work. Let's make people happy. Let's teach the gospel. Well, yeah, well, those are all good things and the church does a lot of good things. I wouldn't take that away. And the members are great, they're wonderful, wonderful people because they've been trying to live a good life. But there's a lot of members like that that are very disappointed and I see them on many podcasts. Or they're devastated by the things they learn. And if you have a conscience and you're into truth, then you have to accept that some things aren't quite not what you think they were or are. And that's where I am. And I have to be a voice, I suppose, for truth. And yeah, I think the church have tried to turn it around over the years to be this squeaky clean, moral thinking church at the turn of the century. They had to turn it around and bury the past. And they're still trying to do it, they're still trying that. But when leaders of the church say, well, you can't quote the dead prophets, that's silly, you might as well throw away the Bible, might as well throw away the Book of Mormon. Throw it all away.

Loss, Legacy, and Closing Reflections

John Dehlin [03:21:46] Do you believe? You'll see, Janigan.

Martin Lock [03:21:49] I do. I believe in a spirit existence. I do, yeah. Yeah. I talk to her every day. I tell her what I do every day. And I feel that closeness with her and I miss her. She was raised in the church in the 1950s, 1958. She was baptized as a little girl, struggled in her teenage years, came back to church and went on a mission and that was the making of her. But she understood in those last moments of her life that there were issues in the church that had to be resolved. And she didn't love me any less. She told me, because I asked her and I just told her that I can't go against my conscience and I've learned things, Jan, that one day you will learn as well. But she could hardly talk and she was on her journey and I couldn't move her away from that. It would be unfair. She couldn't defend herself very well. And she always say to people, I was the studier in the family, I was the reader, I was the speaker. You know, she always played in the back queue in the behind the scenes, but she was. She served State Primary President, state Relief Society presidency, Ward release, studied President, Young Women's President. We've done it all, John, three times over. We got recycled all the time. She's a wonderful woman. I married a great woman.

John Dehlin [03:23:33] Will it be through, in your view, will it be through Jesus that you see her again, or just the way the universe? Is Jesus critical to your being able to see Jan again in your beliefs?

Martin Lock [03:23:47] No, I think, as the world sees it, I will see her again. And hopefully Jesus will be there to welcome us home, to give us a mansion that he talks about. In my father's house are many mansions, and by darn, I hope it is a mansion, not a room.

John Dehlin [03:24:07] Beautiful, yeah. Any final things you want to say to our audience, especially to our UK viewers? Some may be still believing, some may be questioning, some may, you know, may be sad to hear this, sad to see someone of such status and influence it fall in their eyes. And then they might be terrified and. Or they might be influenced by you in ways that may or may not be positive for the rest of their lives. So what do you say to those? Any final words to those, especially from the uk, who might be watching?

Martin Lock [03:24:44] Well, it's a very delicate balance, this. If you follow truth, you have to follow your heart and your mind and it could cause problems in your marriage if you're married to a very devoted woman. Most of the women I come across are very devoted, spiritually wise, probably more spiritual than the men. And they're very devoted. They follow a cause. This is a difficult one, John. I think you have to watch. Be conscious of your marriage relationship. I don't want to see marriages falling apart over the church. And I've got a friend at the moment, a very close friend, who's in that position and I'm trying to give him some advice because he respects my advice and it's a difficult one. But he's been married as long as I have and to a very faithful woman. And I think you have to tread very cautiously. The problem is when you come for your temple recommend interview, isn't it?

John Dehlin [03:25:50] You know, do you lie or do you lie?

Martin Lock [03:25:54] Do you lie and be faithful or do you tell the truth? Difficult, but for most people in Britain, come to know the truth and be happy about it in yourself. Make your own decisions, Be wise, be sensitive, be cautious, but be truthful to your conviction. That's the most you know, I had to join the church on a conviction, and now I'm at the other end now and I'm leaving the church on a conviction of the things I've discovered. Not healthy. Not for me, anyway. Other people would probably brush it under the carpet and won't worry about it. But I couldn't possibly go on in my life and confront the Savior and say, I'm following you because I love you, but I got to do it Jesus way. And that's a private way for me. It's a private way, and that's where I am. It's a private, heartfelt conviction that I still believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world and he will ultimately be my savior. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:05] Last question. How many? There's four temples currently in the uk. Is that right?

Martin Lock [03:27:11] There's two currently operating and there's two in the build plan.

John Dehlin [03:27:15] Okay, so four total.

Martin Lock [03:27:16] There will be four, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:27:17] And what do you. You've probably already answered this, but what do you think about two new temples being built in a UK church that's dying?

Martin Lock [03:27:26] I don't think it will make a lot of difference for attendance. The London temple now is not attended very well. I certainly seen a decline even when I was in the presidency. They only have one shift on the temple now, where it used to be two. I hear things about the temple in Chorley that. Is that Preston called the Preston Temple. Okay, It's Chorley that's not attended very well like it used to be. At one time. It was a mad rush. Now it's not so. Not so demanding. And I think it'd be the same in Edinburgh. There'd be a quick flurry at first and then it'll die off, I think. And same. But Birmingham's in a sort of big area, industrial area, a few stakes around there. But they did close the stake last year. They closed the Litchfield stake. So the stakes are shrinking in membership. Wards are being closed. It's rampant. It's going to be epidemic proportions. I think we're going to see a lot more happening because the more that

John Dehlin [03:28:24] leave, the more leave. You know what I mean?

Martin Lock [03:28:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:26] It's like your kids leave, then you leave. Right.

Martin Lock [03:28:28] Generations are leaving.

John Dehlin [03:28:29] Yeah.

Martin Lock [03:28:29] They're not coming through. The next tier of leadership is not there. People often say what we did in the church, our children, our grandchildren won't do today. They can't do it. They can't do what we did, John. They can't give their all. They make too many excuses. And you get burnout, get a lot of burnout. And people say, well, I can't do any more. I'm burnt out. I'm neglecting my wife. I'm neglecting my children. I see that all the time with our current state presence. Same thing. His dad did everything. Never saw my dad. Yeah. Sad. And you have to be so careful of your time commitment.

John Dehlin [03:29:11] Yeah.

Martin Lock [03:29:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:29:14] Well, Martin Locke, this has been a fascinating three and a half hours. I really appreciate you on your vacation, on your holidays, whatever you call them, taking the time to do a Mormon Stories interview to help us learn about your story, to learn about the Mormon Church in the uk, but also to speak the truth about what you've learned, especially coming from a position of relatively high status, that takes a lot of integrity, takes a lot of courage, and it's a very generous thing to do. So I want to thank you on behalf of my viewers and listeners. Really appreciate it.

Martin Lock [03:29:51] Thank you, John. I appreciate the time you spent with me today. I hope that your viewers have enjoyed some of my content today, that it's helpful and people realize how we do things in Great Britain. It's difficult. We're like a poor cousin over there to the church over here. Don't think we get the benefits that we like to see happen. And it's even worse in Europe, of course, in other parts of the world. But I. I've given an honest appraisal today of. Of everything, all the questions you've asked me, and they've been quite in depth and. And I've enjoyed the time with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me because my wife says I can talk for England, bless her.

John Dehlin [03:30:40] It's been my pleasure. All right, thanks again. Thanks, Ken Martin. Thanks to Nemo, thanks to all those in the UK wishing you all well in or out of the church. Quick. Thanks to Julia and Maven and Gerardo and Brooklyn and those on our board that make the Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories possible. Thank you. Thanks to our donors keep us going and to our viewers and listeners. Please like this episode. Please subscribe to it. Please share it with others. That really helps get the word out. Get this episode to the people that could value it or need it. And of course, we rely on our donors to make all this possible. So if you want to become a monthly donor to support this work, you can do so@mormonstories.org, click on the Donate button. That's it for today. We hope to have more episodes in the days, weeks, months and years ahead and to be profiling other countries as well because we think the international story Mormon Story is a very important story. So be good to each other, Be kind to each other. Apply to be interviewed. If you want, you can go to mormonstories.org there's a link to apply to be a guest on Mormon Stories. If you're from a country that you think we'd all be benefit from hearing about. If you're from a country that hasn't been profiled yet, we would love to consider you for an interview as well, along for all the other categories that we're looking for interview ues for. Anyway, be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

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