Exmormon Conference 2016 Zelph on a Shelf

okay our time this morning our first session is you hear me okay three young people whose I told the other day I was gonna get a broom and knock all the side of their faces and quit changing their minds I put lol for sure yeah but they are the ones who are writing a wonderful blog called self on the shelf and I know while you have read the essays and comments and I just thought it would be a great thing to have them come here and tell you about how they got started what's happened to them since they've started this and maybe some of the interesting people that they have met along the way so I'm going to turn the time right over to them now thank you so yeah we are on the shelf and we're a lot better looking on the Internet's Alliance pseudonyms but yeah so some people don't know is on the shelf is and what the hell is Elf on the Shelf and we have prepared a short explanation of sorts an introduction if you will and I will [Music] this is our backyard it's a really quick video I don't know how tell some jokes Sam today it's cool as I mean right now we're assuming that be dancing in both of Cosi we're doing something fun today YouTube channel hey welcome to self on the show hi and welcome to another episode of Mormon Forsman a video series dedicated to promoting the standards of Mormonism by forcing everyone to use their agency wisely we're doing a famous segment called reading Mormon apologetics so you don't have to as you can see it's really disgusting druggy my homies first of all new cats you're gonna suck at least be funny or said something snap in it yeah we will just keep yeah oh my god she sounds messy [Music] here's a gem the church is an open book here people were leaving the church because they hear a doctrine which is probably not even a doctrine [Music] by the time you're watching this we will have been John de lins home teachers for many months we made John some sugar cookies I'm currently icing them and then we're going to add some about X moment designs to them mess around the ring [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] which things have really gone downhill just a total train wreck peace okay so a lot of people ask well Connor where were you I was at work so yeah yeah yeah I was drinking whiskey but um yeah so we have a YouTube channel but most the time people read our blog and this is kind of a look at our home page so yeah and that's kind of our social media stuff just some interesting stats people care about this I think it's interesting since we started the blog about a year ago we've had over a million views which is pretty crazy so that's probably about as many active members of the church there are so and then our we are leave our Facebook page has 3500 likes which is awesome and 1100 subscribers to our YouTube channel so we're growing and we're trying to accomplish our goals and we'll keep going until it's sounded and every year visited every climb penetrated I don't what does it penetrate I don't member [Laughter] sorry technical difficulties let's see if it reconnects we're supposed to be like the Millennials who have like tech all figured out and we're just the worst thing out weird just as lost as anybody all right well oh yeah so this is interesting so from those videos that leaks over General Conference weekend one of them said that 72% of youth go inactive before the age of 20 which is crazy it's insane so we are representing like a big group of people who are exiting the church and hopefully we can give a voice to that group we're gonna do this like should we just stand up and I'm gonna fix it while you talk because now it's your turn okay oh just is this Mike um Connor do you just push next when it's ready to go Oh so can I use that my name is Tanner Gilliland and I play Richard our alignment and disgrace Mormon apostle on the Internet and I play the Prophet Alma in the temple so to give you an idea of what I was like before I left the church I want you to imagine that if through some unholy Union Bruce our McConkey and Spencer W Kimball had a lovechild okay you can stop imagining that because I don't want you to throw up but that was me I was the most Mormon of the Mormon like Paul said I was a Pharisee after the strictest order I come from a big Mormon family the kind of Mormons that make other mormons wonder if they're actually Mormon they'd be like you don't watch pg-13 movies it was there a memo that I missed about this and that was us just you know your typical not watching TV on Sunday not drinking caffeinated beverages Mormon family and growing up despite being Mormon I felt like I led a pretty normal happy childhood doing normal things that every you know person growing up does like waking up super early to go to a Bible study class boycotting school dances because the music was bad and of course getting together with friends on the weekends to sing church hymns that was really popular I'm sure with every every teenager in America despite being Mormon like I said it was a good upbringing and sometimes I think his ex form as we look back more like man I wish I could have been raised differently I wish something was different about this or that and I honestly don't have a lot of qualms I was really happy growing up and I would have masturbated if I could change anything have done that and you ask how come you wouldn't have sex and I say well that really had nothing to do with me being Mormon right I know that because I'm out of the church and I'm still not having sex so following my I served a mission in Brazil and following a mission I went to byu-idaho hmm you may you may be wondering isn't that like a really strict church school no no it's way worse than that so you have BYU which is like the great value brand of education you know like the malt-o-meal of schools BYU Idaho is like the made in North Korea version of the great value brand it's just bad had a good time there met a lot of really great people had wonderful experiences and probably the best thing that came out of my BYU Idaho experience was meeting Samantha Louise Shelley who sits before you today Sam and I we we met in a class I thought she was a snooty British girl I complimented her shoes and she was like thanks and then just like walked away and I was like all right okay but we ended up becoming really good friends I think we bonded over playing a prank on one of our teachers we had I I was like this president we had to give presentations like this is boring let's shake it up so I passed around a note to the class that said everyone in the class has to use the word indicative during their presentation so any people get up and you know this is indicative of this and about like 15 people go and that professors like am I going crazy or is everybody saying the word indicative and Sam was like okay we need to be friends so we became friends we started working together we started making YouTube videos together and just having a great time well meanwhile Samantha didn't know this but I was starting a faith crisis I love church history from a faithful perspective I used to spend hours and hours and hours reading biographies of church leaders and studying the Scriptures reading talks it was just honestly my favorite thing in the world but because I had such a love for church history particularly Spencer W Kimball I had a black roommate who approached me and he wanted to know more about what happened with the race and the priesthood and how that came to be and I wasn't too familiar with everything that went on there so I was like you know what I'll do some digging for you and we all know how that goes down the rabbit hole I went so while Sam and I are hanging out making these videos I'm having this horrific faith crisis in fact this wrote this in my journal just this is what happens when big political things happen right before a presentation you lose all your notes did you guys see the Trump thing Jesus it's just oh sorry didn't mean to get political just too much I wrote this just just like a week before graduating byu-idaho or I want to believe I want to have faith I want knowledge I want to be with Christ yet when I pour out my soul in agony and distress there is no reply my mind is a storm my stomach is perpetually wrenched I cry I promised the Lord I will make any sacrifice give up any sin do anything he wants if he will but in part a little light yet I remain in darkness fearing that the situation of others will become mine as well I am scared they say the answer comes after a trial of your faith well how long must have be tried is it tried until the age of 70 when you finally decide that the answer is never going to come they say that if you ask in faith nothing wavering it shall be given well how often was must one ask when will the Lord grow weary of my pleadings Oh God where art thou where is the pavilion that covers the hiding place why won't you answer me have I not done enough have I not diligently sought to keep the commandments have I not devoted myself to study in prayer have I not strive to walk circumspectly before thee have I not sought to love others of my as myself have not my eyes grown weary with study in my knees weak in prayer did the sacrifice of two years of my life account for nothing if I am unworthy show me my unworthiness if I am unbelieving help thou my unbelief when a child asks for bread will his father give him a stone I would almost rather be given the stone than given nothing is this trial of faith the stone is it something I must overcome or will I end up finding out that I spell my entire life carrying stones that didn't need to be carried and that I had been deceived and built my life on a fantasy so with that in mind I ate it and started an internship at Deseret book with Samantha we both worked there and had some really fun times again it kind of got to see the inner workings of some of the church their for-profit arm including working at the meet the Mormons premiere where we got to meet some bigwig Mormons and it was kind of a little bit underwhelming to see you know it was like this I don't know sort of popularity contest with the Brethren like everyone just kind of smoothing up to these celebrities and really kind of left a bad taste in my mouth when I already felt so weird about the church as I'm going through boo I got how by the way I won't get into this a lot if you've seen our Mormon stories interview we talked about this about getting in a Mormon fundamentalism because I really truly loved growing up in the church and I wanted it to be true that more than anything anyone who says people are just looking for a way out are full of because we're looking for every excuse to stay and we can't find it and that's what I was doing so I backed up I was like I can't do this Brigham Young thing that guy was an ass so maybe maybe Joseph Smith so I'm trying to you know redeem Joseph Smith in my mind I get involved in Mormon fundamentalist group led by Denver snuffer and while that's happening we all end up in Logan and Samantha and Connor end up getting married and I'm a witness at their wedding just days before being rebaptised in a fundamentalist but eventually it all came crashing down and it was a really big psychologically traumatic time for us to the point where when we actually left the church we kind of went off the rails for a little bit we got really into this game called space team and we ended up making a movie about it because it was just like and we laughed our asses off it was the funnest day just cuz we were like so happy to be doing anything that wasn't warming because we used to stay up for hours just talking about like how does this all work out is this gonna happen it was like a really big deal for me where it's like when Sam antha stopped believing she was like let's go drink so shortly thereafter we heard that John Dylan was doing a support group for transitioning Mormons on the USU campus so we decided to go and meet John and hang out we did that we became friends with John and he and Sam hung out one day and they talked about starting a website and we were like yeah I think it'd be cool because we'd all done different publishing things including apologetics the a word we've been doing some of that and so we thought well we'd like to put our writing skills to use and maybe help some people were transitioning out of the church and as we're talking about a name with John Dylan I said I love the story of zelf because it perfectly encapsulates Joseph Smith's capacity to it's just incredible it's awe-inspiring like anyone who can like that you got to give them props so the story of zelf is they're walking through Zions camp and they see a skeleton that's not even really buried it happens to be kind of conveniently there and Joseph says that everyone's like no skeleton and Jessica's not just any skeleton this is elf a mighty white lay always white a white lamb a night prophet warrior who fought in the last battles of the Book of Mormon and you I'm thinking you know this doesn't really add up I thought everybody was wicked back in that day whatever Joseph Smith he does this thing and I just love that story because it totally blows the the Mesoamerican geography model out of the water because what is this white lamb and I prophet warrior fighting in the Book of Mormon do in Illinois who knows so I was like we got to do something was elf and I asked and we were all there and I go what rhymes what rhymes was elf and John goes chef so fun the show and we're like that's it I know I don't want to hear another name that's it so we became self on the shelf and we'll talk a little bit more about our mission and we hope to be doing here but that was a little bit of my story and honestly last weekend M russell Ballard he asked people who are leaving the church or doubting the church where will you go while he asked that this is where I was going I was in Colorado looking over the beautiful expanses of nature and I think I like this picture because it sums up how I feel about leaving the church that before us is this huge world of opportunity and love and relationships and laughter and so many good things available right at our fingertips we don't have to I wrote an article about that and I said we think the church used to sell us happiness in sacrament sized portions and now we're seeing it growing on trees all around us and I really believe that and I'm happy to be here with you every time I come to one of these sorts of things I think you know I'm like over it I'm happy with my life and then I come here I'm like these are my people I love being here with you last night last night we had our Sun a testimony meeting at a next emoni meeting but I realized that the church made a huge mistake when it cut wine out of the sacrament meeting because having alcohol and a testimony meeting is a beautiful experience I love being with you here with you thank you so much turn it over to [Applause] that's hoping I wouldn't have to stand today okay hello I'm Sam okay so my childhood was probably well it was very different from tanners and Conners and probably most of yours my parents are not religious and I grew up as an only child and my parents got divorced when I was 10 so from the ages of like from 11 onwards I was an only child with a single parent which was an interesting dynamic my parents were very relaxed unless it was about something like school for example I remember when I was nine and I had a toothache and my mum gave me a little bit of vodka just to try and make the pain go away so I feel like that's a good juxtaposition between most people's experiences so okay so when I was 16 I well since I was about 11 I had a friend in high school and about 15 we all learned that he was Mormon and none of us knew what that was we just knew that he wouldn't audition for Godspell and we were like whoa you can't know addition and so we we started finding out that he was part of this like American religion and he's just like his whole family's just great they're great people that they both that's my friend Luke and that's Charlotte they both won like the school nicest students Awards like whenever there were them so they were like really good examples of Mormon so now I was 16 I started having missionary lessons and I sort of just thought it was like you sign up for a class and you'd like take six lessons in this religion and I just thought that sounded trusting because I thought like religious education school when we did re classes I thought that was really fun so I sort of went into it thinking I was getting a class not really understanding the psychological manipulation I'll just call it what it is that kind of goes into the missionary program and like I was I was intelligent I was a grade A student and I you know read a lot and I feel like I was I should have been smarter but studies do show that like intellectual people at the high end of their teens are actually the most acceptable to cult so there's that but I remember so I remember being in like missionary lessons and and sort of feeling that like I would feel things because I was an emotional person and I was definitely susceptible to like the manipulation like probably just because of my kind of messed up childhood and stuff being a part of something was attractive to me and I remember thinking that the missionaries were definitely pushy I vividly remember like if you think I was a couple of weeks before I you know had my conversion moment or ever I was talking to my friend Lewis who was not religious or anything and I was like yeah I've been meeting with these missionaries with like Luke's family and I kind of just feel really pressured and I don't know how to say no to them cuz they're you know American do you know what they're like and he was like just say no Sam get out of that and I ignored his advice well you know I tried to follow it but I was kind of stupid back then and so long story short I got this testimony uh-oh I these guys said I should definitely mention that the first time I ever went to church I was very hung over that was actually the motivation for me going to church the first time was I'd been having these missionary lessons but the idea of going to church was not appealing to me because I thought I don't have a knee-length skirt like that I'm what am I going to do there but then I went to this house party it was like my friend's 17th birthday and it's England so everyone's always wasted and so we I think my friend's mom was at this party everyone was she was fine she was drunk with everyone else but yes so I got very very drunk that night I actually hate alcohol now but I was 17 and or 16 and it was so bad that my mum had to like come get me at 4 a.m. which is just mortifying because everyone was we always used to have like big giant sleepovers after everyone got drunk a lot of house parties anyway so it was just a terrible night because I ended up getting way too drunk and then the next day my friend Luke texted me and was like hey you wanna come to church and I was like yeah ok cuz I wanted to get away from my mom so that it wouldn't so I weren't getting huge trouble so I went to church and the the middle hour was he told the missionaries to teach about the word of wisdom obviously so I guess he knew what happened and I just remember thinking like yeah no I should probably should probably follow that forever so that was the start of it which doesn't seem like a super solid foundation but anyway I did gain a really strong testimony and became very zealous because the family that had taught me they were very very zealous but they were also the kind of people that like there were cool moments you know we're in England so that you couldn't be you couldn't be like a Utah woman and like have friends I said yes so if people are a bit more relaxed there and in certain ways so they were like the best example of Mormons you can have but they were very very zealous so that made me very zealous like I thought you had to fast for 24 hours every month and things like that so I went to BYU Idaho and that this picture was taken oh yeah August chosen him so I went to be our yard her in July and was very very zealous when I got there I remember that I had a roommate who's to come home from curfew curfew was at 12 and she came home at like 12:15 every night or something because she had a boyfriend and I left a note on her pillow one saying like I know God will bless you if you keep curfew it's like I didn't even grow up in this so now I'm leaving notes and people's so it's mental but over the years that be way right how I I sort of eased up because when I got there I thought oh I'm gonna be like the worst moments everyone's grown up in it but I quickly learned that people aren't as weren't as zealous as I was or most of them weren't so I think I fit in quite well in a lot of ways at least this is a picture these pictures are from I think my senior year I met Tanner in my junior year and just because of being like an only child and stuff I've always had these sort of sibling like relationships with certain best friends and I feel like that's kind of what me and Tanner had yeah install of byu-idaho that we were twins despite looking like maybe nothing alike and having different accidents we just really want to dispel all rumors possible yeah yeah so we had a lot of fun making different videos and I think being around town I was nice as well because in England I feel like people Tana was like the closest I'd sort of found to someone more familiar because I felt like people at byu-idaho usually had a terrible sense of humor and I like to laugh a lot but like no one ever got my jokes and that was a bummer so it was just nice feeling like I wasn't you know like a weirdo so I graduated in April of 2014 some solid picture quality coming out and as you can see she's made some drastic changes to her appearance Thanks still very devoted when I graduated I graduated thinking I loved byu-idaho it was a great time I never really I mean I thought it was stupid that you couldn't wear yoga pants at the gym and things like that but not not enough to really care so yeah I graduated very zealous had no doubts whatsoever I surprisingly had really never had doubts the entire time I'd been in the church and as I keep saying I had been so jealous and then Tanner and I worked at Deseret book shortly after I graduated we used to try and match every day for work I have a whole album on Facebook if any of you are interested I've just our matching outfit and this was where I started to become aware of Tanner's sort of faith issues and at first they didn't really affect me I just thought tat I was going down a dark path but then once I tried sort of arguing with him about all these issues I realize I didn't have great answers and he did but that didn't it didn't register like that in my brain I just felt really frustrated and then when I would come away from the conversation you know like the coping mechanism would kick in and I would think oh yeah but when I think about the gospel of Jesus Christ I feel peaceful and like not frustrated so therefore it's all true so that was how I sort of got by for a while but I am a logical person and so after a while these conversations caught up to me and I did become disillusioned with the church sort of still thinking it was true of course and working at Deseret book wasn't the best testimony booster just because you really see how money driven it all is and things like that and we just went into that and like they made us write live tweets for them on General Conference on a Sunday even though the church already did that so it was like only a profit thing really so things like that I didn't think at the time were justifiable so that kind of made me disillusioned but I was still faithful I wasn't quite in like the Denver snuffer phase Tana was in but I was definitely starting to adopt some of those ideas and then I got a job in Logan and I met Connor this is a picture of us eating a hotdog in London that was our engagement picture and so Connor was just standard TBM you know but he was somewhat open to you know slightly out there ideas but only to a certain extent you know and so we got married very very fast which in general and probably do not think is a good idea but it worked out well for us thankfully and when we got married I remember that I was definitely into sort of the Denver snuffle way of thinking because I was huge into the whole scene Christ physically in this life it wasn't something I necessarily wanted but Tanner had convinced me that I should want it so I was like yeah I've got to do this but it sounded quite scary but our Cielo when we got married talked in the little room that they talk to you before you get sealed talked about how sealing was like the penultimate ordinance and last one would be seeing Christ in this life is it an ordinance or covenant I don't even remember anymore but yet he talked about the whole seeing Christ and this life thing so I was like oh good like I think if we would have had a different sort of sila who would have said a bunch about like they need to have kids straight away that would have freaked me out and it would have been a quicker exit for me even that was very quick but yeah so we got married and then shortly after like tannaz doubts had become huge and obvious and so me and him were talking about that all the time it was kind of like Tana was here in his faith crisis I would be here Connor would be here and we sort of stayed on that trajectory the whole time so it was just a few steps behind each other but eventually in and was it May in May I was reading it was actually a blog post from church of the fridge that finally made me realize like I don't believe any of this and like this is gonna be really detrimental to my life if I keep going so that was when I realized like I need to leave so I took off my garments and I texted Hannah Tanner and I was like let's go to Chili's and get mojitos and we went to Chili's to get mojitos and there was this huge drama about me not having like the correct ID that they wanted because I only had British stuff and it it was like outrageously over-the-top with like a manager coming to talk about it and the whole restaurant was looking at me by this point and so we were saying if we ever go back to church this is a great testimony meeting anecdote like we tried to get alcohol and the day really hit left but we couldn't so Connor left people always asked for - Hannah's Mormon stories what happened to Connor but he'll get so history but yeah he left pretty quick after me I think I was just so blunt and honest from the get-go I didn't maybe if I would have been on reddit for longer I would have known the importance of being a bit more careful with how you introduce these ideas to your spouse but I was just like no way Joseph Smith had sex with 14 year olds that's what's going down so it's very blunt and so walk on it down quickly I guess and and he'd been sort of following along anyway so here's a picture from like a year ago but I guess I shouldn't talk a tiny bit about the changes in me since we left because it's really strange for me being a convert and knowing that I chose this and I was someone before this that's like very it is just there's a very strange thing to think about and so I feel like now I sort of Know Who I am and for those six years I was in Mormonism I just lost that and I just like became this different person where I felt like I needed to fit in and relief society and stuff which I never did so there's just different ways that I feel that my life is so much better now like now that I know that we're not human beings that were just like put on an earth and now I feel a part of the earth that's just made me so much more like environmentally conscious and I care about animals so much more like I went vegan and that's been really good for my health and like helped my Edd and stuff so just I feel so much more aware now of every decision I make I feel like I'm making it with awareness and with logic sometimes too much logic I'm like frightened of any feelings based decisions now but yeah I feel like I don't feel any kind of void from the church because there's all these new things like you know things like veganism or caring about the environment those are like causes you can really get stuck into and really care about and feel like you're making a difference but I mean you can logically know that it'll make a difference to like you can look at research and things like that which I love so I feel like I've gone from being this you know trying to be this relief society past just you know passive peaceful all of those things aren't really me to just being out to be myself and that's been really nice and Connor has included this picture of his birthday so soon as I could good note to end on [Applause] okay so I'm Connor and I write under the pseudonym pseudonym Albert Carrington if you don't know who he was boy are you in for a treat he he was an apostle and he committed adultery and when he was brought to his disciplinary council he was just like oh it was just a little folly in Israel no big deal kind of a big deal but I think that he is just marvelous that's why I chose him so um yeah this is I grew up in the church and I loved it I loved being a member of the church that's me with my two of my siblings I my parents had an accident child later on and then they wanted a friend for that one so I have two younger ones that came down the road but that's that's me and my two siblings and that's mean so my buddies before we went to a steak dance so we were really cool if you can tell five of its closer than that but um yeah I am I really like being in the church I it really fit with my personality and my parents raised me with just that whole basic attitude of love being the first thing I my relationship my parents has become Rocky but my dad's the kind of guy that if he was sitting in like p ec and the bishop was talking about we need to start measuring the metrics of the priests that are coming in and we need to make sure they're being active and want them to be home teaching and yeah my dad's like forget about it we should make sure they're loved and i'm we seem to love them i mean it needs to be about love fundamentally like that's those are the kind of those are the people my parents are there it's oh it's about love and so my whole experience of the gospel growing up was very much about those those broad ideas and ingraining that means so i felt like growing up it was a really positive experience for me in a lot of ways and so i I went to college after graduating Ito State did that for a year and while I was up there I mean when I graduate high school I didn't even apply to BYU my parents wanted me to go but I had this idea in my mind which was I wanted to learn more about the world and I had lived in this bubble and I wanted to kind of experience an outside view and of course Logan Utah I mean but but Utah state compared to BYU is like night and day you know so so I decided I decided I was gonna go to Utah State instead of staying around Utah County and I think that was really good for me and I took like a religious studies class just for fun and you know you start to hear these like conflicting ideas and you start to get in your head like these are people that have like the same beliefs and they hold them just as dear and they believe they're just as true and it just makes you start to wonder things and then you go to class and on Sunday and you hear you know official declaration number two and you're like whole black thing really was a bit messed up wasn't it and then I just kind of started to have questions and so that first year I went home for the summer and it was time to go on a mission and all my buddies were going everyone's going and I was just kind of like I don't know I don't know and I kept putting it off putting it off and one day my dad came up to my room he's like son you're gonna go on a mission or what they won't know you got to talk to me he'll be no no I was like I don't know dad like blacks the priesthood polygamy like what's up with all this and then he just gave me this heartfelt testimony and my dad just like I don't know but you know it's just it's made my family so good and it's made my life so good and and it's made me love your mom more it's made me love you kids more and it's just made me want to be a better dad you just gave me just the most heartfelt testimony and like I'm just crying and he's crying and I'm like oh man it's true I better go so I went and yeah I went to I went to California Riverside mission speaking Mandarin Chinese so and that was wild how they smoke don't want well that means it's out sure jungle I'm elder Schneider right so um so yeah it was weird I was dropped into California and my trainer and his companion were the first Chinese missionaries there and they had done English work almost their entire missions and so I was just really stressed because here I was in California's supposed to learn Chinese my trainer his companion we're leaving in a transfer and so they were just mean this other kid from Kentucky that was terrible at Chinese and we were supposed to like make the work go forward right so it was it was it was a really hard time we I stayed in the same area for pretty much my entire mission with the exception of one transfer I had three companions one of it to which I had for 10 months each and so it was brutal it was brutal and I mean we would we would walk around this town in California and we we get the phone book and we'd find all the Chinese names we put him inside the GPS and Mark all the houses you know so we could just be like targeting the right places and and you know it was weird because I look back on it now and there was this one kid we taught from he was a he was studying at the University of California Riverside and he want to be a journalist in China and to be a journalist in China you need to be joined the Communist Party right and part of joining the Communist Party you need to declare kind of atheism as your brand right that you don't believe in God and we were teaching him we're like no you got to believe you know it's awesome so awesome he's like well you know I don't know because I want to be a journalist and if I want to be a journalist I can't you know be a Christian so I let's go that goes and he ended up being baptized in deciding that you know he's willing to throw it away for Jesus and for the church and and I look back on that now and it's so frustrating to think that I I did that to somebody and just before General Conference started I had a convert of mine call me and said they were gonna be here for General Conference and they wanted to meet me and I was just like hey I don't I don't believe in this anymore yeah and it's it's one of the it's it's really it's it's hard because you just remember these since we're you just everyone's baring your soul I mean I remember giving her a blessing we'd all be crying at the end you know and it just some incredible spiritual experiences and then and then it's just it's different now because I just look it completely differently and yeah so now I try to be an ex-mormon missionary to atone for my sins so yeah and one more and one more thing about this too when I went on my mission before I'm gonna mesh I got my patriarchal blessing right before I left because I was terrified to get my patriarchal blessing and I got it right before I left and into my picture combusting it said but on my mission I would see a family be sealed in the temple so I went on my mission and I was like I'm gonna get this done I know that if I'm faithful God do this and it happened and so that was this family that I just grew super close with and I got to go to Temple them and they got sealed and I was just like oh whoa like this is a legit prophecy that has happened I have it's written down it happened like what more evidence you need there's the evidence right there it's true and so that was like a big deal for me when I was going through my face crisis holding on to that like prophecy didn't come to pass so I came home and I met Samantha I was like ooh hot British girl with an accent absolutely and of course Samantha was a package deal with Tanner so now yes so it's it's it's really I love Tanner and he's just of the best things that's happened in my life it's weird it's sometimes it's like we're totally sitting at her house to meet Samantha it's like Wystan or not here he needs to be over here but to just just like when we first left the church people said to Samantha and Tanner you guys left because you guys are having an affair you guys are committing adultery and that was really frustrating to me because we we went to Chili's to get mojitos and there was this huge drama about me not having like the correct ID that they wanted because I only had British stuff and it it was like outrageously over-the-top with like a manager coming to talk about it and the whole restaurant wasn't looking at me by this point and so we were saying if we ever go back to church this is a great testimony meeting anecdote like we tried to get alcohol and the day really left but we couldn't so Connor left people always asked for - Hannah's Mormon stories what happened to Connor but he'll get to tell his story but yeah he left pretty quick after me I think I was just so blunt and honest from the get-go I didn't maybe if I would have been on reddit for longer I would have known the importance of being a bit more careful with how you introduce these ideas to your spouse but I was just like no way Joseph Smith had sex with 14-year olds that's what's going down so it's very blunt and so walk on it and quickly I guess and and he'd been sort of following along anyway so here's a picture from like a year ago but I guess I shouldn't talk a tiny bit about the changes in me since we left because it's really strange for me being a convert and knowing that I chose this and that I was someone before this that's like very it is just is a very strange thing to think about and so I feel like now I sort of Know Who I am and for those six years I was in Mormonism I just lost that and I just like became this different person where I felt like I needed to fit in and relief society and stuff which I never did so there's just different ways that I feel that my life is so much better now like now that I know that we're not human beings that were just like put on an earth and now I feel a part of the earth that's just made me so much more like environmentally conscious and I care about animals so much more like I went vegan and that's been really good for my health and like helped my EDD and stuff so just I feel so much more aware now of every decision I make I feel like I'm making it with awareness and with logic sometimes too much logic I'm like frightened of any feelings based decisions now but yeah I feel like I don't feel any kind of void from the church because there's all these new things like you know things like veganism or caring about the environment those are like causes you can really get stuck into and really care about and feel like you're making a difference but I mean you can logically know that it'll make a difference to like you can look at research and things like that which I love so I feel like I've gone from being this you know trying to be this relief society past just you know passive peaceful all of those things aren't really me to just being able to be myself and that's where really nice and Connor has included this picture of his birthday so as soon as I could get note to end on [Applause] okay so I'm Connor and I write under the pseudonym pseudonym Albert Carrington if you don't know who he was boy are you in for a treat he he was an apostle and he committed adultery and when he was brought to his disciplinary council he was just like oh it was just a little folly in Israel no big deal kind of a big deal but I think that he is just marvelous that's why I chose him so um yeah this is I grew up in the church and I loved it I loved being a member of the church that's me with my two of my siblings I my parents had an accident child later on and then they wanted a friend for that one so I have two younger ones that came down the road but that's that's me and my two siblings and that's me and some of my buddies before we went to a steak dance so we were really cool if you can't tell five of it's closer than that but um yeah I am I really liked being the church I it really fit with my personality and my parents raised me with just that whole basic attitude of love being the first thing I my relationship my parents has become Rocky but my dad's the kind of guy that if he was sitting in like p ec and the bishop was talking about we need to start measuring the metrics of the priests that are coming in and we need to make sure they're being active and want them to be home teaching and yeah my dad's like forget about it we should make sure they're loved and I'm we seem to love them I mean it needs to be about love fundamentally like that's those were the kind buzz of the people my parents are there it's oh it's about love and so my whole experience of the gospel growing up was very much about those those broad ideas and ingraining that means so I felt like growing up it was a really positive experience for me in a lot of ways and so I I went to college after graduating Ito state did that for a year and while I was up there I mean when I graduate high school I even apply to BYU my parents wanted me to go but I had this idea in my mind where which was I wanted to learn more about the world and I had lived in this bubble and I wanted to kind of experience an outside view and of course Logan Utah I mean but but Utah state compared to BYU is like night and day you know so so I decided I decided I was gonna go to Utah State instead of staying around Utah County and I think it was really good for me and I took like a religious studies class just for fun and you know you start to hear these like conflicting ideas and you starting to get in your head like these are people that have like the same beliefs and they hold them just as dear and they believe they're just as true and it just makes you start to wonder things and then you go to class and on Sunday and you hear you know official declaration number two and you're like really what's a bit messed up wasn't it and then I just kind of started that have questions and so that first year I went home for the summer and it was time to go on a mission and all my buddies were going everyone's going and I was just kind of like I don't know I don't know and I kept putting it off putting it off and one day my dad came out to my room and he's like son you're gonna go on a mission or what they want to know you got to talk to me I'll be doing and I was like I did not add like blacks in the priesthood polygamy like what's up with all this and then he just gave me this heartfelt testimony and my dad's just like I don't know but you know it's just it's made my family so good and it's made my life so good and and it's made me love your mom more it's made me love you kids more and it just made me want to be a better dad you just gave me just the most heartfelt testimony and like I'm just crying and he's crying and I'm like oh man it's true I better go so I went and yeah I went to I went to California Riverside mission speaking Mandarin Chinese so and that was wild how they smoke don't want well that means it's out sure junghwa I'm elder Snider right so um so yeah it was weird I was dropped into California and my trainer and his companion were the first Chinese missionaries there and they had done English work almost their entire missions and so I was just really stressed because here I was in California's supposed to learn Chinese my trainer his companion we're leaving in a transfer and so there was just me and this other kid from Kentucky that was terrible at Chinese and we were supposed to like make the work go forward right so it was it was it was a really hard time we I stayed in the same area for pretty much my entire mission with the exception of one transfer I had three companions one of it to which I had for 10 months each and so it was brutal it was brutal and I mean we would we would walk around this town in California and we we get the phone book and we'd find all the Chinese names we put him inside the GPS and Mark all the houses you know so we could just be like targeting the right places and and you know it was weird because I look back on it now and there was this one kid we taught from he was a he was studying at University of California Riverside and he want to be a journalist in China and to be a journalist in China you need to be joined the Communist Party right and part of joining the Communist Party you need to declare the kind of atheism as your brand right that you don't believe in God and we were teaching him we were like no you got to believe you know it's awesome it's awesome he's like well you know I don't know because I want to be a journalist and if I want to be a journalist I can't you know be a Christian so I let's go that goes and he ended up being baptized and deciding that you know he's willing to throw it away for Jesus and for the church and and I look back on that now and it's so frustrating to think that I I did that to somebody and just before General Conference started I had a convert of mine call me and said they were gonna be here for General Conference and they wanted to meet me and I was just like hey I don't I don't believe in this anymore yeah and it's it's one of the it's it's really it's it's hard because you just remember these since we're you just everyone's bearing yourself I mean I remember giving her a blessing we all be crying at the end you know and it just these incredible spiritual experiences and then and then it's just it's different now because I just look it completely differently and yeah so now I try to be an ex Mormon missionary to atone for my sins so yeah and and one more and one more thing about this too when I went on my mission well before I'm gonna mention I got my patriarchal blessing right before I left cuz I was terrified to get my patriarchal blessing and I got it right before I left and in my picture combusting it said but on my mission I would see a family be sealed in the temple and so I went on my mission and I was like I'm gonna get this done I know that if I'm faithful God will do this and it happened and so that was this family that I just grew super close with and I got to go to Temple them and they got sealed and that was just like oh whoa this is a legit prophecy that has happened I have it's written down it happened like what more evidence you need there's the evidence right there it's true and so that was like a big deal for me when I was going through my face crisis holding on to that like prophecy and it come to pass so I came home and I met Samantha I was like ooh hot British girl with an accent absolutely and of course Samantha was a package deal with Tanner so now yes so it's it's it's really I love Tanner and he's just one of the best things that's happened in my life it's weird it's sometimes it's like we're totally sitting at her house to be Samantha it's like my Stan or not here needs to be over here but um to just just like when we first left the church people said to Samantha and Tanner you guys left because you guys are having an affair you guys are committing adultery and and that was really frustrating to me because we Tanner had really helped me out a lot and I feel like Tanner helped both of us get through our transition really well and just to have his character drunk like dragged to the mud have my wife's character jacked at the mud was one of those things that really bothered me and still bothers me today so if anyone's wondering Connor Connor we have a really awkward confession that was a curveball I'm just gonna bump into it you know so met Samantha met Tanner and we've just been friends since then and this is a picture after oh it's all blurry whatever forget about it okay that's my family as it is my sister on my on her wedding day I didn't go inside the temple Newsome did Samantha and oh yeah oh yeah the Xbox better explain that first okay so important member of the family absolutely so Tanner was the going through his face crisis let me he talked to Samantha and then Samantha would be like two weeks behind him right and be like well what am i list well this was like no that's not true that's not true and then she would be like how it is true and then I'd be like well no that's not true come on come on guys slow down and like oh crap it is true so it was just this like Tanner was four weeks ahead of me Samantha was two weeks out of me and then I was just kind of like trying to fight him every way so Samantha told you about the day or she took off her garments and decided to go to Chili's to get a drink and I'd been at work all day and she'd done laundry over at Ana's apartment cuz our apartment was gross and I went to go pick her up and I noticed she wasn't wearing her garments and this past the past month of this and we've been married for four months this was going on so like this has been hell for us like just the most awful you're like fundamental worldview is changing as you've just been married right and this past month had been really rough because it was just like we would had we hadn't been having the conversations like well is it true is it not true right and so when she took off her garments I knew at that point she was done and so I just immediately just like what are you doing why are you not wearing garments like what's going on what's going on trying to like fix this right and she was like we're talking butter I know when I can talk right about now we got to the house and she's just like I don't believe I'm done and okay all right doing this work yeah gone yeah no I'd realized that well I decided the church wasn't true that day texted Tanner to get drinks and Connor saw that wasn't wearing my garments and was suspicious and was definitely had a sinking feeling but nothing had been confirmed because I don't think he thought it was like possible like completely yeah so me and Tanner drove an hour and a half to a Walmart that had the Xbox kind of really wanted because we thought this might soften the blow yeah so basically that night it went down hey Connor I got a present for you here's an Xbox by the way I don't believe in God so buy anything in the world with money and this is I just want to show like this how good of a 10-person that tanner is and like how much part of the family is he pitched in a hundred bucks for the Xbox so so I'm sitting in our crappy apartment I've got an Xbox in my hand Samantha's in the other room I'm bawling and angry and frustrated and then I've opened the Xbox so like I'll just play xbox so I tried to play xbox of course it has to download and update and install so it's three hours of doing that which is just more maddening so I'm just staring at the loading bar and I'm just like trying to process all this and Samantha's in the other room and she's crying and and it was rough for a couple days but the next day we went on a walk and we sat on this bench I was trying to explain to her like what about my patriarchal blessing like a little knowledge of spiritual experiences and she was just like yeah so think about all those things and think about God commanding Joseph Smith to marry these teenage girls like let that sink in and that just juxtaposition between those two experiences like all the good and wonderful and awesome things that I felt in the church on my mission all that compared to what the prophet of the restoration did and I realized that something was not right either God was not here or this had nothing to do with God and those experiences were just because I was doing something that was hell being other people feel good and so I decided I was done and so I was about a week after where I finally was just like I'm done and we've just all been out and having a good time since so I'm gonna sit back down and we're just gonna talk a little bit about why would use elf and then we'll go ahead and do some questions first of all I apologize for not closing my remarks with my testimony in my mission language sorry to break protocol there okay so when we were Mormon we were all pretty involved in like online content creation the thing I was supposed to mention that I forgot was that had this blog called millennial Mormons which was at the time like kind of a unique thing it was just you know a very like TBM blog but we always said we wanted it to be a cross between people's personal blogs and the church website like somewhere in the middle so it's like his faith was the church website but it's like young and fun and like sometimes they would write satire that would piss people off but yeah and then Tana would always write for us and then me and Connor site another website could whatsoever is good and I used to blog for ODS living in things so we're all involved in website stuff before we left the church and then when we left the church we met with John and he was like you've got to do like a like a vlog or a podcast or something like that and so that's when we got into though from the show and we just count ourselves really fortunate because we happen to be born in a time when the internet was around when all this information was available thankful to you know thankfully to so many ex Mormon pioneers who really paved the way for us to be where we are getting that information out there doing all the research doing all the grunt work we really kind of feel lazy because all this good work is being done by so many courageous people and we're just kind of like you know riding their coattails and making videos you know it's not that they put so much hard work into so like it really we know who the heroes are and it's those people and some of them are here you know some people who do a lot of writing and research of things that we don't even touch on but we do count ourselves fortunate that we were able to leave the church so early and most of what we do itself is wanting to help other people because we we do have it easy I mean like we still have a whole life before us and a lot of experiences a lot of people leave the church don't get it you don't don't get to until a little later in life and so like we're here for those people too if anything just kind of give people a life on a hard day and let them know that like the world's not so bad and leaving the church isn't all that bad and that there's hope and that there's community and there's people who get it and we're all in this together and I remember when we first left I really loved this video it was from the exponent foundation conference in the past and it was a cult expert talking about how to get people out of cults and I remember him saying that the most effective way to get people out of cults is with disaffected former members and so I think that was like powerful to recognize early on and so we just want to change the narrative of ex-mormon ism because as much even though we said that 72 percent or maybe it's higher of young people do leave it doesn't seem like there's any real channel or outlet for them they just sort of go quietly and try never to bring it up again and maybe lie to their families a bit and so we just wanted to yes I guess change the narrative and make young but not that we just you know want to speak to young people but we really did want them to have content that is accessible to them and is kind of like laid out in a format that they're familiar with yeah just relate related to that so after we started zelf we did part of the reason we did synonyms because we didn't want people to know like we didn't want to be throwing this in people's faces we wanted it to be available for people that were looking for it but we want to be shoving it down our friends and family's faces right but of course they found out eventually people in my ward found out and they told my dad and one of the first thing my paintings my parents said to me when I left was we don't want you to talk about it like just don't be one of those bitter people that goes on to say all this stuff you know just like you live your life in little bit positively and you just go to your thing and on some level I get that I get the whole like find something positive find something you want to do and go and live your truth or whatever right but on the same I thought this I'm the same token this is my community right these are people I care about these people I love and there's people that are hurting and you can the most effective good that you can ever do is within your circle and this is my circle whether I like it or not right and we like it and when I get and so and so that's that's been the biggest point of friction between my me and my family is is not even leaving was hard for them but it's even harder for them to see me criticizing and being and see me you know saying things aren't true or whatever but I think it's important that we speak out and we do we do it smart we do it in a way that's positive but we have to we have to say something you know and at the end of the poem I said you know I don't want to be known as an ex-mormon or a Mormon I just I just want to be me and while that's still basically true I've also come kind of on the circle where I've realized you know what Mormonism is a big part of who I am and I don't have to lose that I don't have to I don't have to let the church control my identity in that way I can own it on my terms and I think that's what a lot of zelf is is taking these cultural things these historical things and making it our own and not letting the church run that narrative anymore and I think that's a big part of it too one thing I want to talk about touch on too sometimes tapered and Peterson will get upset at us for for not providing historically Africa accurate information and oh yeah like like this that's Ryu tapered an horse but I we don't claim to be historians not at all we absolutely understand that we're standing on the social these shoulders of giants absolutely we are just writing a blog it's not that impressive I'm the least impressive of the Tanners it's such a good joke we are our whole goal is just to make X Mormonism cool and we you know somewhere Boyd K Packers ghost is just those only kids but and and we're not that cool but we do want at least have a conversation started and we wanna have fun with it and too much of the time it's just so serious and bogged down and heavy and everyone's just like this is just heavy thing just like let's just have a laugh you know like let's just have a good time and so that's kind of what our real goal with it it's fundamentally okay we're gonna do a Q&A now if anyone has any questions we got a mic runner what's your name brother Steve Steve's gonna aren't too subject a my name is Jared I meant Tanner last night at the party and I just wanted to say I really enjoyed talking with you and I think you're awesome but one of the things I had a question about is kind of you mentioned a little bit as how your family dealt with it and how I guess because your family was completely Mormon and yours was too and I just wanted to know what that dynamic is now and how you're dealing with it my parents really have tried to be the best that they could when I finally decided that I was out of the church I had a series of panic attacks where I would just be at work and I would just start bawling and shaking and so I'd have to go out to my car and I just sit there for an hour and just cry and finally after you know one of those I was just like I have to tell my parents so I called them and I told them I said I just I said would you love me no matter what he said of course and I said okay because I can't be Mormon anymore well first they said are you gay I said no not gay [Laughter] I still I'm not sure that they're convinced about that yet most people aren't convinced yet but yeah so I told them and they really tried to be the best they could they said we love you because you're Tanner not because you're a Mormon and and I really appreciate that and it's it is hard though because I know that deep down inside that is really important to them shortly after that I found a letter that my dad had written me about six months before and in the whole letter he said or he said just like God we love all our children but some of our children are choice they're favored because of their righteousness and you are favored because of your righteousness and the whole letter he wrote was all about how I was active in the church and how I was faithful and a good example and had a strong testimony and that kind of broke my heart a little bit because I was like even though I know they're trying really hard I know that up until this point their love and acceptance for me has been based on my testimony and so but you know it's not their fault they're really doing the best they can with it I know it's hard for them sometimes I get the vibe that they don't like we'll sit together and we'll talk and they won't ask me a thing about my life and it's it's because they don't want to know the answer and and I and I don't blame them because you know I don't wanna they wouldn't want to hear like yeah I got drunk with my friends last weekend while we wrote an article about an ex Mormonism like they don't want to hear it and I don't blame them for that but they really do try their best to show love and and to let me know that I'm accepted my mom's theme for our family is what is it she's gonna be pissed she says fierce loyalty that's her thing that our family's fiercely loyal to each other no matter what so I do appreciate that with my family that's kind of how it's been I just I just gonna say real quick cuz my mom has a thing for family too and it's happy healthy and righteous and two out of three is not bad live laugh love drugs so my question for you is as someone who kind of led my wife out of the church and probably in the in the from the perspective of her family probably dragged her out I'm curious for you Samantha how have in law relationship and you know what Connors mum said she had nothing nice to say about me which I think sums up well it is a downer it's a downer I have to compliment you guys on a grassroots effort of how an example of how to do the Internet and you mentioned that the that the Deseret book you were called in to to tweet on conference morning and my question is if if if you know whether the Apostles tweet on their own or if they have someone assigned to do that for them so when I was a communication major at BYU we we byu-idaho we took a trip down to Temple Square to meet with the public relations team because public relations was my minor they don't actually have minors that BYU I hope they have their own knock off thing don't ask anyway they I specifically met with the people who run the brethren social media and also with the people who write the press releases and first I asked them I said do the apostles write these press releases like do they do it and they're like no we just kind of do it on our own and if it's a really sticky thing we'll run it through the correlation Department and I'm like well that sucks and then we met with the social media team and it's just a bunch of interns that do it they they were joking about how the Apostles don't even know their own Twitter password and so it's kind of funny when like the Lord spokesman needs spokesman who are paid interns it's kind of kind of funny so yeah they don't actually do their own tweeting a multi-layered question have you resigned have you been gentlemen what do you recommend there's a lot of people in this room that you know that's an agonizing decision even though you don't believe do you resigned you stayed you do you stand it be excommunicated do you this or that what are your feelings about that whole process personally thank you so we all resigned I can only speak from my experience I am a combat so it's like obviously different but in my mind it doesn't make sense to support a fraudulent organization that's harming people in any way and resign and also submitting I know some people like to do the whole excommunication make a scene I think that can be really cool too but for me personally I wasn't going to subject myself to a bogus disciplinary process I just wanted to make it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with this and I felt like that was the biggest impact I could have on the church was just to resign like I just want to see their numbers them to be worried internally so that would be my answer we resigned at the mass resignation event last November after the policy came out and we we've been talking about it for a couple months before that like do we just kind of go with this and see you if we like get excommunicated do we resign and when that happened I think we all felt like this is the perfect time to go resign because that was just the most awful thing and I think it's so important that people stand in solidarity with people that are weak and that are marginalized they don't have a voice everyone here has friends that are struggling and that can't talk and they're hiding and I think it's important for us to speak up when we have the chances I thought that was a good opportunity so we all resigned then oh yeah you it's it's definitely like not a black and white issue we don't pretend that what worked for us works for everybody it's definitely different I have so much respect for people who get excommunicated for people who stay quiet even because sometimes that is what people need to do to survive I have respect for the people who stay and make a difference who vote opposed and you know there's we need everybody there's no one answer for everybody but we felt it was appropriate to be was to resign I when I thought about my name what where my name would be associated if you know someday my name appeared in a history book I would not want it to show that I stood stood by and let things happen without taking a stand so you guys are so awesome we love you Steve I mean your your blog posts are just so cogent and so so well articulated it's just awesome and I'm glad you are inspired by Darren in Church of the fridge because that's another one that's like that there's a lot of really amazing people in this movement and you guys are absolutely making it cool to be post Mormon so thank you my question is so after the church there's a lot of soul-searching as to so what is this all about and and I just wanted to hear kind of I know you've gone through some of that searching I just wanted to hear where you're at with that what are we allowed to say legally [Laughter] just kidding atheists in that we haven't seen enough evidence to believe that there is a God I think we're all pretty convinced that if there is it's nothing like anything man has imagined I guess we will have a bit of like we're all kind of fascinated with transhumanism is that going beyond being human but yeah we we don't have any religious beliefs anymore I saw meme a couple days ago I thought really kind of described this well and I'm gonna butcher it but that's okay it basically said that leaving God and asking what the purpose of life is is like a slave being freed from their master and asking who's my master now and I I think it kind of sums up well for me because I kind of feel like after leaving um it's it's really natural be like what's the purpose of life it's all meaningless and I don't know what it is so I'm just gonna create my own meaning and just do the things live in love and enjoy and make a difference in circle around there I'll square with you after leaving the church was probably harder for me than leaving the church I didn't think it could be but leave it the process of leaving was stretched over a couple years with some really intense points but there once I left it was just like everything was different and it was really really hard because the church had been my whole life and got really depressed and and really struggled and that's something that I've written a little bit about because I want to be open because I'm tired of that like of hard times being taboo I'm tired of pretending like it has to be okay and we're the happiest people on earth and like we never have any problems and we're the perfect family it's like I don't believe that anymore you don't have to we're humans and some part of being a human is having really shitty times and I think when we can accept that the healthier will ultimately be in the end so it has been really difficult but we've you know you kind of start thinking about things that you can do on a practical level that fill you with happiness words before it's just of this like theological gamble like well if I read this arbitrary set of ancient records maybe that will make me happy where it's now it's like what I can exercise and get the endorphins and I can go outside and get the vitamin D and you know you start thinking more practically so that's been a big part we've been tried to stay healthy I only I'm I'm like a I got dragged into veganism kind of I'm like not actually a vegan but I'm with them so much I kind of am by default vegan Sam Sam is definitely are our health mom in that in that regard should make sure we get get a lot of exercise and they're eating well and meditating and as far now that we don't think that this meaning or that there's necessarily anything beyond this life I'm just super determined to make this life as long as possible so every day I'm like God have flaxseeds guys there were no minute long hooks so we're trying to live as long as possible but as far as actual purpose goes yeah like not some grand cosmic divine purpose but I do think that humanity is moving forward and a lot of big important ways and in the next 20 years we're gonna see some incredibly huge changes with technology and artificial intelligence we talk more about transhumanism and robot takeovers than we do about Mormonism if you want a little insight into what our lives are like and the cat's we tell a lot about cats but I think you we kind of had this idea at Mormonism that we could save the whole world and change everything and I've kind of had to like minimize that a little bit and be okay with just making a difference where I'm at and with the people that are in my my circle and so I think just a million views that's it was there in terms of meaning for me personally I think it's cool that you know we have this this big earth that we now know we weren't placed on or probably weren't we're just a part of it just like where is just as much a part of the earth as that mountain outside is and so I think it's really cool that we are the only you know fully conscious beings on earth and like the mountains are so beautiful and grand but they have known and so like we are the only ones that get to appreciate all this stuff so I guess get outside it yeah we're cool we won the cosmic gamble yeah let's just enjoy it as best we can hi my name is Lorelai and this is so fascinated all the information you've given us the thing that blows me away the most about what you've said today is that puzzles don't do their own tweets I don't know why I should be so shocked about that after Joseph Smith and everything else but it makes me feel like I've come to the place that I can really get answers to the mysteries because you actually know and one of the mysteries that I think a lot of Mormons ask refer to it a few moments ago when we resign does the church actually reduce the membership number if anyone knows you would or do they are we still actually counted in in the membership records does anyone really know I don't know the mysteries I think this is a grain of salt because I haven't looked into this enough that I should even be talking about it whatever so in the leaks this last little bit if I remember right I think elder Gong at one point was using an internal number of active members that was different than the previous conference number that they were reporting and so obviously they recognized internally and they're using metrics internally that are different than what they're presenting a General Conference I so I would just say everyone go home and double-check that and look and you know I know how we can figure it out if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God Oh Lord hear the words in my mouth do they use the numbers you didn't repeat it three times Tanner that's okay go to Google [Applause] we need about 10 to 100 more coops like this thank you so much for sharing what you've done

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Id: 7bg8syB49TE

Length: 83min 24sec (5004 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2018