An Ex Ex-Mormon's Story | 3 Mormons

VIDEO: An Ex Ex-Mormon’s Story | 3 Mormons

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An Ex Ex-Mormon’s Story | 3 Mormons – powered by Happy Scribe

So we got trusty. Rusty. Dust. Dust. Yeah. Dust. That trusty. Rusty trusty. Must we learn? Lots.

Good thing you didn’t say lusty were canceled. We’ve got Dusty Smith on the show. And Dusty story has been shared on LDS living and things like that internet.

All of these in alone.

Because Dusty, you used to be a Mormon and then an anti Mormon. And now you’re Mormon again.

Yes, I read the story. You are a Mormon sandwich. Sort of like that.

Like a real saucy kind of edgy metal.

There is a sauce report. Actually, I grew up non LDS. I converted when I was right after College and served a mission after my mission is when I left the Church. I was in law school, actually, is my third year of law school. When I left the Church.

And did you go inactive or did you leave the Church?

Oh, no, I actually I lost my testimony totally. And I was angry. Very angry. And I wrote a letter to the to my state President and said, Please remove my name from the Church roles. So, yeah, that’s as leaving as you can get. And then I got a letter a couple of months later inviting me to Church court. I said, not going, you don’t have any authority over me. I’ve already rejected you. I didn’t go. Then I got another letter about a month later saying that I’ve been excommunicated.

Oh, Mary.

Ah, that didn’t help with the anger issues.

Well, you asked for it.

I did.

I always felt like they could have just said, okay, your name is off, but they went through the whole ordeal. It Port in that disciplinary Corp. And that really interesting. Kind of done. No, I was even more done. I was over done. But, yeah, I left the Church in 89. My third year law school got you. Where did you go to law school? I went to Thomas Cooley Law School in Michigan. Oh, Cool was the only a law school I could find that would let me work full time.

Enos schools. Law schools to law school is very, very strenuous. And the law schools will not let you work full time, especially your first year. But I carried a full time job all three years.

What was the crux of losing your testimony? What was that put you over the edge? Because I think a lot of people can relate with your story.

Well, when I was in law school in Michigan, I would go to Palmyra every now and then. Right. And I happened to go. My last year of law school was during the pageant, and I went to the pageant, and there were just tons of anti Mormons, and I argued with them because I’m in law school. I can argue with anybody. Lehi took that arguing 101 class and on the Devil’s advocate, heavy on the devil part. I finished law school. I haven’t passed the bar yet.

But I came back.

Wanting to be the smartest Mormon ever so that I could better argue against anti Mormon. So I came back and I began to read stuff. And the more I read, the more I thought I was never taught this. I was never taught this and to be perfectly honest because I was in perfectly honest before now. But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t prepared for a spiritual battle. I was living on 3 hours of sleep a night, working all day, going to school, studying all night, trying to grab 3 hours of sleep here and there and wasn’t prepared for the spiritual battle that I was going to undergo.

And I woke up one day and realized that I no longer believed I no longer had a testimony, man.

And when you know how long had a testimony that you didn’t just become neutral, you weren’t like, all right, well, I’ll just live my life.

You were not my style. Yeah.

You’re like, not my style. You’ll be taking your arguing and you’re gonna go against the trip when you’re in court.

You’Re not like, well.

Then you could be.

You could be happy.

So so much.

So I’m gonna just sit down now.

No, I became not even a little anti. I was anti to the infinite degree. I taught classes in churches against the Mormon Church. I but you were that guy.

Like, when I was a Methodist, they brought in a man who was also bat, and he told him about was at the time you were much younger than I was better looking, too.

You were much younger than I taught classes. I wrote stuff. Then I found the Internet. I got out when I came back from I went to after law school, I was in the army, and I was stationed in and panel on Hunters. And which is interesting that I was stationed in Hunters because I served my mission in Honduras. So I actually went to people that I had taught and apologized for teaching. Yes. Oh, boy. Yeah. When you say anti, I was, you are like a little letter online.

A rolling people on Twitter. You were like, the real deal.

If you had some Twitte would never work for me. You’re limited to 140 characters. Then I found the internet. When I came back to the States and I looked for bulletin boards, were LDS bulletin boards. I wanted to argue with people, and I did. I went and found several, and I was constantly posting, you guys are wrong. You guys are wrong. You guys are wrong here’s why you’re wrong. It’s a false Church. It’s a false Prophet. You name it. I was spelling it. Hold on.

So do you think that when you made your decision that cognitive dissonance fell in and you were like, Well, I made my decision. So now I have to go deep into anti. Where did you truly feel like there was no other option than to go anti.

There’s always an option. But here’s the thing that I don’t think that people, if you left the Church, you understand this. If you leave the Baptist Church, if you leave the Methodist Church, if you leave the Lutheran Church, you haven’t invested much in those things. A lot of people choose their Baptist Church, Lutheran Church, Methodist Church, on who has the best sermon. They like this car the best congregation. When you become LDS, you invest in yourself into it. I was a College graduate when I became LDS the first time I quit my job to go on a mission.

Yeah.

Okay. I had family that turned their back on me. I had a girlfriend who turned her back on me. I gave up quite a bit to be LDS. And so when you leave that you feel like you’ve been cheated. Yeah. Absolutely. So it wasn’t just it wasn’t just ambivalence in. No, I will say this. There are a lot of people who leave the LDS Church who become atheists, and I never did that. I always believed in God. Interesting. Okay. Always believed in God. But. Yeah. Holy Moly.

I was out there. I began to then search out places where I could argue with people. I wanted people to know that I was against the Mormon Church and that they were all wrong. And I was right. And that’s how I met Mike in the story. Mike was on what the Mormons really believe. I joined and said, I’ll tell you what they really believe. And he and I began to argue quite a bit. Some really nasty arguments. He’s been a part of those a little bit.

I can see that with him. I can’t. You’re probably always right, though. So you just hold that inside that’s kind of the branding of the show. Yeah.

I just based upon that.

I didn’t know that for a fact, but I suspected it.

I had no idea that I had no idea that Bruce Willis at such a fudge to him.

You know, Interestingly enough.

I could have a room.

I get stopped all the time. You look like I took a picture of me by Hip poster here’s one day because people kept saying that. And darned, if I don’t a little bit, I don’t get his money. But, you know, maybe his strength. But on the positive side, I didn’t have to be with the be more either. So.

So you’re in these arguments with Mike.

And they’re nasty, nasty.

And they’re just not probably very edifying. Or they’re not really conducting any sort of good outcome.

No. In fact, people watch them. They were arguments in post where I would say something and he would say somebody else would join. Yeah. This was a chat board where people would post on. There would be different threads and you could go and I would start threats. Look at what Joseph did here. Look at what this happened here.

Or was this just a couple of things, or was it like Joseph polygamy Blacks and the priesthood? Women in the priest to Mother? You want to know?

One of the biggest arguments that I used against was all the various versions of the first vision. I would tell people on the board. You put a witness on the stand. I mean, I’m a litigator, right? You put a witness on the stand, and I have one more trial that I can shake a stick at by them having more than one story, two stories I can destroy with with two story. And Joseph has nine. I can destroy his story. I can destroy Joseph on the wood. And I would tell that to Mike.

Yeah, that was one of my biggest arguments. The archaeology was another one. I can walk the streets of Jerusalem, but I can’t walk the streets are Hamlin. Those were one of my other arguments. So Mike and I over the over time, became friends and and the hatred went away of the Church. And I began to feel a pool back in 2005, ish began to fill a pool and rejected it. I said, It’s just good feelings of my mission because I really love my mission. Even when I was hating on the Church, I would say, but my mission was my best.

Two years of my life.

I had some fun time.

I love being a missionary in Hunters Boy. No, not invoicing. I probably wouldn’t have fun invoice. But I I love I love being a missionary. So I kind of rejected it. Then in 2009, the poll came back a little bit, and that’s when the miracle started was in 2000. What precipitated some of the miracles was in 2009. In 2009, I went down to the Mexican border to do depositions. I had a client who was from Mexico and had been in a car accident in Dallas. And I went down to do he couldn’t come back in the country.

So we just arranged to do the depositions at the immigration station there on the border in Loreto. So I go down to the border and I contract the swine flu.

I have a swine flu in 2009.

H one and one. Did you really? I did. I had the real back kind agent.

You were much younger.

No, no, I’m kidding. Yeah. Let me tell you some time. I came back and I was so sick and I’m the veteran 60 surgeries. They consider me a disabled vet. So I called the VA. They said, oh, no, don’t come here. Nobody would see me. They were afraid of it. I remember in my two missionaries knocked on my door, my son let him in and they came up and I didn’t want them there. And they said, Well, can we give you a blessing? And I said, okay, and they did.

And I was immediately healed immediately. I mean, I got up out of bed, walk him downstairs and still did not join the Church. My pride was way too. They said, I was gonna will not have a good day. Yeah.

Thank you so much for the healing. Come again.

I’ll call you what? I’m sitting now. Maybe not actually. Well, I went back. I went back to Sacrament. I went talk to the stake President. He said, You’d have to go to a Church court to come back. I said, Well, I do a thing wrong. I’m not going to a Church court. I said, Forget it. I walked away. Well, 2009 I did join another Mormon board under a name. I forget what name it was for me.

Something like that in like an all the posters on.

Maybe that. And I told him I was being pulled. I felt a pool and then I Mary left the board and never went back. Forgot I’d been ever been on that board. In 2014 I rejoined that board under a name Country Boy. And you don’t think yeah. And I begin posting and this girl starts messaging me. Her name was Garden Girl. And she said, I feel very, very strangely drawn to you. And George Strait was like, Come to the Church.

I’m a country boy. She’s a gardener girl.

You probably should take to just as.

That as be funny on this show.

So anyway, I told her, I said, I got to tell you, I don’t mind messaging you, but I’m married and she wrote back and she says, I’m 75. Get over yourself. She just garden. Yeah, she just gardens. So anyway, we talk on the phone one day she was LDS and I was never going to come back to the Church. We were talking and she said, do you have any family members in the Church? I said, no, I said, I do. Hang on. I do. I never met him.

But he’s a big monkey buck. His name is Dean Jesse. He is a Church historian. In fact, if you read the Joseph Smith papers, you can thank him for that. Nice. I never met him. Okay. But I knew that his existence because my mother did family tree work and she was a long pause and she said, Your cousin is Dean Jesse. And I said yes, and she said, My cousin is Dean Jesse. Turns out this woman and I are related and never knew she existed. So then my wife is working for a photography company.

S district manager and they want to move her to Louisiana is a promotion. We said, okay, well, is that a promotion? Louisiana. She moved to Baton Rouge. We agreed we would meet in Street Port once a month and it was going to be fine. I wanted her to live her dream. It was promotion, right? She was there for several months and they said, oh, we’re going to close that district. We want to move you to Baltimore. Alright. So we talked about. I said, Fine, I’ll convert you over three months.

We’ll go see Washington, DC. Well, do stuff. So I called Mike, my friend Mike, right of the bulletin board thing. And I said, Mike, I need you to pray. We need Susan to get this position in Baltimore. It’s a two week betting deal. But, you know, please pray for her. And Mike said, Absolutely not the name of the temple, which Mike had done for 20 years for me. And I said, however, Mike, this is where I got really crafty. I said, If God wants me to be LDS again, he will send Susan to Salt Lake.

There was no position open in Salt Lake. And I knew that the very next day, the person in Salt Lake retires. Very next day. Susan’s paperwork is transferred from Baltimore to Salt Lake, and she’s hiding without any betting immediately. So I call Mike. And I said, Mike, you’re not going to believe this. But Susan’s going to Salt Lake in my ex. You know what you told God? I said I was just joking. He said, God wasn’t that’s when I decided it was time to hit my knees.

And I said, okay, Heavenly Father, you want me to be LDS again? Great. But I have issues. There are issues that I left the Church over. Those have never been resolved. I need you to resolve these issues. And I left in his hands. And then for the next several weeks, I would wake up in the middle of the night with a new answer every night, not every night, but almost every night. I was some new answer. For example, I told you that geography was one of my issues, right?

Archaeology. And so I’m sitting talking to talking to the Lord. And the Lord says, okay, if you walk the street to Jerusalem, does that make the Bible true? I said, no. And he said, but if tomorrow someone found a sign down in South America somewhere and they wipe it off and it says, welcome, Mary Hemler, population 450. What would that do? I said it would make the Book of Mormon absolutely true. And he said, Well, then what would be your faith? And I was okay. That’s an answer I could accept.

One of my issues was Joseph Smith. First. It was the one where he was a treasure Hunter, a kid or full lore. Yeah. What the Lord told me. He said, okay, Mr. Attorney, who would you have chosen? Would it have been you who questions everything? Would it have been a doctor, perhaps would have been more your liking who always needs to have proof and evidence of something to fix something? Or how about my plan? Where it’s a person who’s open to the suggestion that there’s other stuff out there, that there’s the potential that God will talk to you, that God will be there, that you’ll have visitations from Angels.

Who would you have chosen, Mr. Attorney, since you’re so smart. And I said, Jesus, Miss Sir. But that was an answer that I could understand, but the one about the very Enos.

Yeah.

This is kind of funny because I’ve always heard the answers. Well, he told different things to different people at different times.

Yeah.

So something happened during the day and Susan was living here. I was still living in Dallas, and something that happened on me what the story was. But I wanted to relate the story to Susan. So I’m telling Susan the story, and I’ve already told it a couple of times to friends during the day. But I’m I’m telling Susan, I’m cutting some things out because I feel like she doesn’t need to know the superfluous stuff, right? And she’s interrupting me. I’ll ask questions, and I hate being interrupted.

Keep that in mind anyway. Sorry. Finally, I get mad at her for interrupting because she’s asking me questions. And she finally says, if you tell me everything, I wouldn’t have to ask you questions. And I’m not realized you do tell people different stories based on who they are and what you think they already know. And that was a hard way to learn that lesson because we had fight. But it did dawn on me. You might change the story a little bit, not change it, but alter it to focus on different things.

Yeah. Or less, depending on who we’re talking. Yeah. So these were some of the answers that I was waking up with in the middle of the night, and I would go back to I’d write it down and go back to it. Then one day I woke up and I hit my knees to pray as I did every morning, and I realized my testimony was back and I had like, I don’t want to make it sound like I’m a visionary because I’m not that I had, like, this scene in my head.

We’re heavily father was the Lord walks up to me and he’s got his hands like this. And he walks up to me and he says, okay, I have kept as safe and warm for you. Now it’s your turn to keep it this time, take care of it. And he touches my chest, my testimony back. And for the first time in my life, it dawned on me that the testimony. But I was an LDS. The first time. It was like testimony was like an icloud. You pulled it out when you needed it.

I’m going to give a test.

I’m going to Pul it down.

Give a testimony, put it back up there. And it occurred to me that the testimony, your testimony is a living, breathing thing. And if you’re not, nourishing, it taking care of it and feeding it that it will die as it did with me the first time. So I went back to Dallas. I mean, I came to visit Susan in April of 2015. I had gotten where I was going to get re baptized, hadn’t baptized yet. And I come to Salt Lake to visit Susan or once every three months.

And I’m taking my five mile walk that I do every day. And the Lord says, this is home now. I don’t want to move here. I had a great job. Great law firm, nice house, balcony, front porch. I love my house. I went back to Susan. I said, Susan, what do you think about Salt Lake? And she said, I’ve been wondering how to tell you. I don’t want to leave. I said, Fine, I’ll go back home and I will trying to sell the house. So I get back home.

I called a realtor realtor comes to the house and looks around and said, okay, you’re never going to sell the house ever. Because it was built 1929. The foundations a mess. You’re going to have to spend thousands of dollars into this house just to get the house sellable. I can consider appraising. Yeah. And even then, you’ll never get what it’s worth. And I said, I called. Susan said, okay, Su. Never mind. We may have to rent it out. I got baptized a couple of days after my caption.

I got a knock at the door. Guys standing there and he says, I want to buy your house. I said, My house is not for sale, he says, I know I was driving down streets. I looked at, I want to buy it.

I’m one of the three nights.

Hang on.

Teaser.

I said, Sir, I got to tell you, I appreciate that. But I don’t have the money or the time right now to to spend to get it all fixed up, right? He says, I want to buy it as is. Oh, my gosh. I said, how much hero down to figure was more than the house was worth. I called Susan. I said, You’re not gonna believe this. And she said, when the Lord wants you someplace, he really wants you someplace. Now the word is not in there. About a year after that.

I mean, I sold the house, moved here, boom. Right about a year after that, I get a phone call. Some guy wants to buy my house in Dallas. I said, I sold it. You said, you sure? I said I was there. Pretty sure. And he said, Hang on a SEC. I heard paper papers, uh, wrestling and everything. And then he says, I said, what he goes, yeah, the record show your house was bought by somebody. He then disappeared. Your house is in foreclosure. I mean, for him, not for me.

I got my house. But the guy that bought my house, if you go down Dallas right now, the house is abandoned, a mess. He buys my house and disappears and make your own suggestions. So then remember, I told you about the missionary. You one of the three knees. I actually the up. In February this year, I went down to Sandy, Utah, to a gun show and the table of holsters. Oh, my gosh.

I would like to say, how does he know he can just tell he just be that I have radar for those that hate the Constitution.

Of a good one.

My apartment. We have the Constitution on our wall.

It’s full of dark holes. I get it, especially right around the Second Amendment. That’s the boy.

Oh, man. Glenn Beck’s gonna love this.

That has it. So anyway, I’m at the gun show and I want a holster. So I see a table for holsters and we go over there. My wife and I walk over and we’re talking. And the one guy says, Are you from Texas? I said, yes. You said I own property in Texas. I said, Cool. And we got to the why I’m here. And I said, Well, if you heard the President Gore talk in October, then you know why I’m here. That was me. And he goes, really well.

You talk to me for a minute? I said, sure. So my wife and I walk over with this guy and another guy kind of follows. So I’m telling this guy my story and I get finished. And the other guy that followed him says, You’re from Dallas. And I said, yes, he goes, oh, Cliff, I said, Yep, you said, if I don’t remember me. But in 2009, I came to your house and gave you a blessing. No, it gets better. It gets better. Turns out that he was inactive.

Wow. His Bishop told him to go to General Conference priesthood session, and he goes, Because of President Dorf’s talk. He reactivates, not realizing that the guy prison or talked about was the guy that he knew in Dallas, Texas, in 2009, came up to his house.

Cape a bless.

Is this not bizarre?

I’m laughing to get laughters of joy. That’s amazing.

So it’s just been one of these says laughters of joy. Laughter, laughter of sadness. Is that a thing for him? It is. I find that people in the Constitution laugh sadly. And by the way, sadly, is now a word so big. Muchly is at work.

And how many people say and it came to pass that much leaderish.

Do you often say? I’m gruntled.

I don’t often say that.

I say that I’m rusty. I can’t imagine because it’s the opposite of disgruntled. Ah, yeah. See, gruntled means you’re not disgruntled. It’s true.

That makes a lot of sense.

Well, I had to spell it out for you, buddy.

So.

It’S been one of these miracles after it. And it’s not all of them. But there’s been one thing after another that you just go, my goodness. And it’s been an amazing trip. I was at work one day before October last year in the summer, and I answer the phone as a female, and she says, Is this dusty? I said, yes, it is. And she said, Would you please hold for President odor.

Enos.

And I got enough. He got on the phone and we chatted about my story, and then he ended up using my story. And Hello, Dusty. I’m not one mocking.

Oh, my gosh.

No, no, no.

And you find the ship to you’re getting so good. Just need a whole time.

So he’s my story in in general conference. And then later, he ordained me a high priest. And when he did, that, my Bishop, my stake President, my wife were there. My wife was not LDS. And he said, let’s come in and let’s chat for a few minutes before the ordination, I thought he’s going to talk to me about the responsibilities I was going to have now and everything. No. He spent 30 minutes talking to my wife, and he told her, bring what you have. We’ll add to.

And then he told her, I know that Dusty wants to be sealed to you in the temple. We’ll save a place for you. And the very next day, Susan agreed to take the lessons. And we just baptized throughout September 20. Wow. So it’s just been an amazing journey. This story came out, and I’ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of emails. I feel like what I have is a message of hope, a message that people can relate to. That if they’re non Mormons or anti Mormons are struggling with their testimony.

Well, Dusty, thank you so much for coming on the show. That was a beautiful story. It was an amazing testimony. Where, like that teared up a little bit that angry most of the time. That’s fine.

I’ve been waiting a long time to say those things to so thank you.

Well, I just wanted to say thank you so much. No, it’s been awesome. Y’all are gone. Great. Over. Great. Thank you so much. These guys are awesome. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. You won’t want to miss a single episode of this, especially you don’t want to miss the ones that he’s by himself. Okay. So you want to subscribe to see him all just so you can see those. Okay. You see how much better it is now. We have room.

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