Ex Mormon Files - 361 - Lisa Brockman Pt 1

is an LDS woman's reward in the celestial kingdom a life of polygamy forever next on the ex-mormon files [Music] hi and welcome to another episode we have all the way from Florida today Lisa Brockman thanks Lisa for coming and sharing your story for having me you're here in Salt Lake to do some other things I know but it's sure nice to have you thank you and I appreciate you coming and why don't you tell us where you were born and a little bit about your background I was born in Honolulu Hawaii and how long did you live there only eight months my dad was doing his residency in the Army and so we moved several places and then ended up in California between four and eight years old and then when we were eight we moved to Salt Lake and my dad had grown up in Salt Lake City so my mom was from Idaho so they're active Mormon so they're very devout yes and your whole family I guess yeah the brothers and sisters I have two brothers and two sisters oh okay yep I'm a sixth generation of Mormon very active in the Mormon Church growing up very good strong testimony absolutely I'm ties that age eight and all that stuff yes and primarily in Sunday school I guess young women's youth programs all of it yeah you went to school here locally in Salt Lake I did I went to East High School okay yeah and then you took seminary I guess I did I did take seminary no one and I have to admit and this whole program is gonna be a little different this one and we're actually going to do a second one with Lisa because you've written a book and we want to go through that a little bit but I I know from the book that you ran into a couple of questions during seminary time yeah yeah those do you remember them well the first one when I grew up as a child I mean I just believe the church was true with all my heart from the time I can remember never doubt at that and I didn't really think about the doctrines I just thought everybody everybody believed what we believed pretty much like I I knew they didn't because I that Joseph Smith had had claimed that God told him all the other sects are an abomination of the Lord when he was seeking which church do I join so I knew they didn't believe what he believed but I don't know I just never was very thoughtful about somebody else's view of God he wasn't curious and so anyway when I got into seminary it was my senior year and my seminary teacher one day started teaching us the Heavenly Father physically impregnated Mary and I was horrified I'd never heard that in my life and I was like what and I stopped him and I'm like in the club I stopped him I was like could you repeat that like I I can't believe what I'm hearing and he said well yeah and he started talking about I said that's incest like he's married to heavenly mother and she's his daughter and I had no category for and I was just horrified and then my teacher said well there are just some ideas some beliefs in the Mormon Church that you just have to trust and we don't talk about him that much and I was like totally derailed and that was the first time I was really confronted with it was horrifying to me well I knew about that doctrine and yet I never put the words together that this is Heavenly Father having sex with his daughter or one of his daughters isn't that strange that is yeah and the LDS even think of that concept right and I wonder why that got me because so many doctrines didn't but that one definitely stirred me up yeah and then the other one is I the one I started with today about yes yeah well I was a senior in high school I was really into boys like boys were my god I would say I had I've been bred to worship boys and I would did that really well so anyway but as I thought about I was getting closer to the you know marrying age not that I was anywhere near that and prepared for that but as I thought about that I could not digest the idea that I would be a polygamous wife in a celestial kingdom if I were to get there someday and there was nowhere else I wanted to be I wanted eternal life and so the temple marriage yeah and so I always wanted the temple marriage from time I was five years old probably so anyway one day I just randomly asked my mom after school mom how do you deal with the reality that you're gonna be a polygamist wife in heaven and it was genuine and I don't at all follow her for her response but she just said Lisa I can't think about that that's one of those things I just have to believe up there it's gonna be okay and once we get there we'll understand well understand yeah and I was like it's not working for me this time usually I can do that and do that intellectual disconnect or shut down and I don't at all fault her I just think that's what you have to do in the Mormon Church to be present with some of these doctrines and it was shocking to hear those and to think about those and those response was I mean I wasn't shocked by the polemic polygamy in heaven because I always knew that that was the destiny it was just very it was just a very disturbing reality to me as I got older yeah now was it during this time that you ended up at a Pentecostal church field trip when I was probably 14 or 15 years old we had a Sunday school teacher and he was a little be a sunday-school teacher and he was just more I think just more open to people of other belief systems not that he was adopting them but anyway so he had this man who worked for their cut the family company and he washed the windows and so he told us about this man and invited or shared that we were gonna do a field trip to their church and then he was going to come to our church and so we were yeah so we took a field trip and I'm pretty sure I was a freshman in high school well we were in our Sunday best like we were and you were the only ones in your Cindy was the only ones at our Sunday best so we filtered into this not a church house like we were just in a commercial building of some sort and it was a small congregation maybe 50 75 people and most people were in jeans and t-shirts and tatted and that was living freely and long hair this guy had really long hair and then there was a band with an electric guitar and drums and I I had never been exposed to anything like that in my life so we filter in and we sit on the back row there's all these 14 15 year-olds and our Sunday best we were such fish out of water and that first song begins and they're cranked it on the band's which now I completely appreciate cranking on that electric guitar and I just was filled with so much judgment yeah I didn't have a category for this kind of worship and so it wasn't that it was just a different kind of worship it was unholy it was wrong and I sort of sat there I think quite piously sure judging judgment and then people started to lift their hands and I was like what's happening like this is unholy it's wrong so that was a shocker I didn't know people did that to worship and now it's just changed yes I think what I love about being with the biblical Jesus and being apprentice to the biblical Jesus and living and flowing in God's kingdom the biblical God is that there's so much freedom there's so much freedom the way you love God and the way you love others there's so much to judge no doesn't mean it's wrong name prior judgment that we did right now you were active tennis player I guess you played the University of Utah I did play piano yeah some other talents you might have I've played so many sports um one of the gifts my parents gave me is just the ability to get involved in anything I wanted and my mom was really good making that happen so from the time I was probably five years old I was in dance lessons I started gymnastics I started swim team at seven diving team tennis team soccer so gymnastics team competitively I was competitive in everything and so we were that kind of family back then that was more unusual today this is how families do life a lot in our culture but we were pretty unique that way so what a close family right family home evenings family home evenings and highly valued family what did you think of Jesus if you can recall back as a teenager and met seminary and all that yeah I think that I mean I just Jesus was my brother our older brother yeah I think that's the most prominent view I had of him or thought I didn't think a lot of Jesus we talked a lot about like we're the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and I thought we're Christians because Jesus is in the name of our church but Jesus like he suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and he gave me the ability to overcome the grave that's pretty much the essence that I could resurrect and then exalt if I so chose and then everything else was up to you yes so I would say more prominent than Jesus to me was the Prophet much more prominent much more of an impact yeah that's what the Prophet said and who the Prophet was I think I revered Spencer W Kimball far more than I revered Jesus really yeah I just we taught I mean we sang praise to the man as a hymn that's right so Joseph Smith was revered and I really revered these guys and I mean if they told me to jump I'd ask him how high like there was just no question that these men were appointed and anointed from heavenly father and so definitely more weight was given to the prophets for me yeah to the church mm-hmm so after high school then what happens in life well after high school I was supposed to play tennis for BYU and I was though quite rebellious my senior year of high school the pressure cooker I would call it of shame and never feeling like I could be worthy enough never feeling like I could make myself worthy enough for Heavenly Father's 11 acceptance and for his blessings I got so tired and it's like your call our culture took on the accent that works based Leben acceptance and it filtered into our family culture it's everywhere and I just it is pretty it's pervasive yeah oppressive isn't it yes and so something in me snapped and I was like just I don't care I can't do this I don't want to do this anymore I totally believe it with all my heart still not a question that it's true but pragmatically right now my friends who are drinking on Friday and Saturday nights they're getting relief from this shame and this tension of worthiness and unworthiness and I want that and so my senior year of high school I began partying and I just remember shutting down my conscience one drink at a time one cuss word at a time and I can very vividly remember when I shut down my conscience and so you said somewhere in the book but you compartmentalize into silence I thought that was an interesting phrase because I think we Mormons do that whenever they're not doing what's right and they know they're sinning and shaming they just compartmentalize God and put him silence yeah well yeah and there was so much disapproval yeah like I knew the way God was seeing me was not lovely was not acceptable he was disapproving but I knew also that if I wanted to come back into his acceptance and be word I had to make myself worthy and I needed to go see my bishop and I wasn't ready to try and be perfect again and so I was like forget it and so I with the same passion I lived every other area of my life tennis academics friendships I went into the party world well because I was in that whole culture at the time I didn't really want to go submit myself to BYU standards and so at the last minute pretty much redirected to the University of Utah like the summer before my freshman year of college and so when I got to the you one of my tennis friends on the tennis team said that there's this guy named Gary and you guys are gonna click like you're two peas in a pod and so she lines you up when he's a baseball player okay soul is like line me up with Gary and we totally clicked yeah Gary it provides an interesting question to you eventually I don't yeah there's a story between this and the question he asks you yes well Gary and I went out a couple times and on our first couple dates we'd established that I was LDS and he was what he called a born-again Christian and I'd never heard of one of those before this is back in the 80s in Utah there was no internet never met a born-again Christian I had a friend he was Lutheran but she never went to church I had a friend who was Baptist and he went to church but other than that it was just pretty much Mormon or non Mormon and so yeah he said he was born again Christian I was like what that and I mean we talked about it briefly and I was like I don't really want to talk about this like let's just party let's have fun you're really cute I can really worship you so anyway we dated about a month and then we were driving around campus at the University table picking up report cards because there was no internet and I put my hand on the car door handle to open up the car and get to open up the door to go into the communications building and I'll never forget snow was just falling all around us it was such an emotional moment for me I remember every detail and he I went to open the door and Gary said Lisa how do you know the church is true and nobody to ask me that my entire life and I whipped my head around to him and it's like his words were floating through space it was slow-motion for me and I said because I've had a burning in the bosom and I know it's true and he said how could you entrust your entire eternal destiny to a burning in the bosom and I I was like I have no other standard for knowing truth like how could you not yeah this is the only way to know this it had never occurred to me and he said and then Gary proceeded to ask me how do you know Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God how can you defend the authenticity of Joseph Smith as a prophet of God can you defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon and I was like I don't even know what you're talking about I don't know what these are I don't know Allah so these are I have never thought about this in my life and as he proceeded to ask me really legitimate questions one after the next like that solid foundation of all those little works paying a full tithe at one point for a lot of my life obeying the word of wisdom going to church every Sunday all those works that I just thrown as stones into the foundation of my eternal life destiny turned a quicksand and I just felt like I'm in a freefall I cannot defend what I believe I don't I know what I've heard every Sunday I can articulate the plan of salvation backwards and forwards but a burning in the bosom is not going to satisfy this man isn't it interesting as you're saying this that you've been through all these years of sacrament meetings and Sunday School seminary that stuff before yes yeah not even a paradigm for that Wow so did you you started studying well we avoided it for Christmas break he went back to Idaho for Christmas and he came back and we were if I wasn't so infatuated with Gary I would have been out of there by our next encounter because Gary came back and he's like we need to start dealing with this issue because we were very much infatuated with each other and joying spending time together and so he said let's study the Bible well we both decided let's study the Bible because we have that doctrine in common now and you were hopeful that he would once he learned the truth that he totally I set out to convert Gary to Mormonism and he hoped I would encounter a Jesus he believed I never knew yeah so we began Bible study oh my gosh the first study talked about the nature of the biblical God one God manifested in three persons eternal two eternal not a man who progressed into God not flesh and bones but spirit I just felt like my whole world came undone I was like this isn't true and he'd say well God his Spirit no he's flesh and bones how can you defend that John 4:24 God is spirit and like it doesn't say that look at the Joseph Smith translation I'm like wow the Joseph Smith translation has changed that meaning of that verse and it's like I would fight grammar nowhere else in my life if it says God is spirit would I fight grammar but I fought grammar and I just remember anger rage really like very passionately opposed to this biblical vision of God and it was so incomprehensible to me this Trinitarian God he's that word I'm like what the heck is a Trinity and incomprehensible and there was something about the Mormon God because he was like me he was not a man she wasn't incomprehensible I had grown up in a faith that brought God down to my size and then elevated me one day into godhood yeah and so I didn't transcendence was incomprehensible and not a good thing so that's where it began and I just remember being absolutely I was just so angry really I was angry didn't know anything other person hangri that he was making these claims and showing me in the Bible I think I was so terrified that there was such a difference I just assumed that's the church that the church was the biblical it was presenting me biblical information and so I wasn't angry at the church I I was defending the church tooth and nail and so I was I was angry by what he was saying even though he was showing me in the Bible I was still I was just angry did grace come up at all oh my gosh well that was probably so I would've been out of there after that study if he didn't look like a God really I would have that was just too much so the next every Sunday we would have Bible study and we would party Friday and Saturday and have Bible study on Sunday and yeah so the next study I think we talked about the nature of man according men and women according to the Bible and he introduced the idea that according to the Bible human nature is sinful not divine and it's almost like a demon came out of me and I just screamed out I said I do not have a sinful nature and the irony is that there was nothing in my life that could support did you comment I mean I was as dark as dark heavy like I was living deep neck deep in sin but I was did I mean I there was a demand of me that and an anger that you were caught that he was calling me sinful and I know from the book that you commented on the young women's model talking about my nature I cannot recite the young why don't you have a divine nature yes they talked about that I think at this most recent General Conference again about the divine nature of yeah so we don't we don't really consider ourselves sinful no no I category for that and it made me very angry it just felt so diminishing yeah so you go on with with Gary for a while well for five months Gary and I did Bible study and every Sunday was kind of that intensity yes and it was me just fighting and fighting and working at convincing him that Mormon doctrine was true but when I came to see was there was this chasm about who the nature of God the nature of people how we get to God how we restore a relationship that the Bible is all about this relational community of the Trinity inviting us into that community Heavenly Father's plan was that I would progress into godhood everything that was important seemed like a polar opposite and I didn't know how to reconcile that but I fought tooth and nail to defend Mormonism for five months and at the same time I started reading and books like evidence that demands a verdict by Josh McDowell and books that were a defense for the Bible and where some of these authors like Josh began as atheists and they were gonna disprove the Bible and so that was helpful for me to really wrestle through is this the Word of God because it's presenting a different plan of salvation and a different God and I need to know how to reconcile this is the Book of Mormon the Word of God is the Bible the Word of God share this with the bishop or with your family oh now it no and I think I know hard to bring those things out this night really hard and I had I think that's one of the really sad parts of my story is that I didn't feel the freedom to involve ya you couldn't involve No and I think I think that's probably sad for my parents because there there were very much whiplashed when I came to the place that I came to but it just wasn't possible yeah well and they they really don't want to hear things I mean you know how you were with Gary at the beginning right you're very defensive and know this is true and ya don't make me think about things that are uncomfortable yes it just happens I don't know and then once we come and our eyes are opened then you want to share but they're not at the same level that we are right and in that journey in so it becomes right you know they become resistant another defensive yes well gosh so what happens after well about five months I came to a place reading all these books about the Bible and Biblical manuscripts and the history and all of that and then looking for historical evidence to prove the Book of Mormon to be true reading about the authenticity of Joseph Smith is a prophet researching and researching and I researched like crazy and it wasn't just anti-mormon literature like I was reading briefs are McConkey I was reading our prophets I was reading Joseph Smith's discourses it's not like I was just giving all the anti-mormon stuff I just needed to understand so I could articulate and so after five months I came to the place where I saw there isn't historical evidence to support the Book of Mormon and there's tremendous more than any other book in history the Bible has more evidence to support it so once I got to that place it helped me begin to wrestle with individual doctrines and so it's like peeling an onion where little bits of light would get in and I remember the reality that my nature is sinful it's like suddenly that sunk into me it began to wash over me and I began to see I'm not basically good I need a Savior I think that's the message isn't it that we actually need a Savior not just to resurrect us from the grave but for eternal life like I there is nothing I can do to make myself worthy of God's love but he's given me Jesus and all I have to do is accept his gift so that was the first doctrine that started to get into me and this was during your study time and when you yeah and were you with Gary then I'm still dating understanding yeah he must have been thrilled to have you I think he was because when I share this reality of the gospel with people I'm thrilled when the light starts to get in so over the next four months these major doctrines began to sink into me and I began to agree with them of a savior and the gift that I am sinful not divine yeah and I started I knew the biblical God is one God manifests in three persons but back then in the 80s in Utah people described the Trinity as an egg so that's not even accurate it just like it's heretical but you know God's like a white a yolk and a shell I'm like yeah what so people weren't explaining it well to me so I was wrestling with that and Gary left for the summer and then I kept reading and I kept studying and it was August right before my sophomore year of college someone gave me a book called Beyond Mormonism and it was written by Jim Spencer who is a man who'd converted to Mormonism and he was a professor at Rick's college at the time and I journeyed with him through his story and one day my under my mattress were all sorts of books I had the Journal of discourses I had Mormon doctrine by the conve so it's my search cuz I was still living at home we lived like blocks from the University so this day I read this book cover to cover and when I got to the end of the book I knew this God is a real God this God is a true God he's a good God and he's a God of love and I want to be in relationship with this God but I still can't get wrap my mind around this Trinity and then it's like God just came and pulled back it's like give me a portal into another reality and I had a vision of Jesus on the throne it's surrounded by a sea of people bowing down holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come over and over and I just fell to my face I was like yeah I can't wrap my mind around you know I think that's the point you're holy I am NOT and I want to be in this kingdom and he's always been God and yeah and so I place my trust in Jesus that day the biblical Jesus for eternal life Wow well I hate to say it but we'll have to continue this in the next episode okay okay and we're going to be introduced to Lisa's book out of Zion meeting Jesus in the shadow of the so we'll see you next time on The X Files [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Ex-Mormon Files

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Id: gefQQpI_TT0

Length: 31min 15sec (1875 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 08 2020